How to determine when a new candlestick is forming in MT4

posted in: Trading Tools | 0

Timing is a crucial part of trading whatever currency pair/instrument you are trading that is why knowing when exactly a new candlestick is going to form is a huge advantage in bagging that profitable trade. However the question is – how? Do you crank an alarm clock and set it to synchronize to your trade’s current timeframe? ‘Tis but a jest but we have a tool that does just that (minus the crank).

The New Bar Timer Indicator is a simple yet powerful script for the MetaTrader 4 platform that allows you to see exactly when the current bar is going to close and/or a new bar is going to open in any timeframe. With each tick, the indicator gets its information straight from the server so you can be sure that it only shows the correct numbers. Also, with just one glance you can quickly get a perception of the remaining time which I will explain more later. The indicator shows a timer at a corner of the chart which is shown in the following format:

new bar timer indicator preview

DD:HH:MM:SS

Where:

  • DD is the number of days left,
  • HH is the number of hours left,
  • MM is the number of minutes left, and
  • SS is the number of seconds left.

You can perhaps also appreciate the fact that the New Bar Timer indicator gradually changes color as the time ticks down to 00:00:00:00. This allows you to immediately get a sense of how much time there is left.

The timer is RED when it is beginning counting. It then gradually changes to YELLOW when the timer is halfway. Finally, the timer slowly turns GREEN as it is near its end. The transition of color is shown below:

Below are just some examples:

New Bar Timer indicator at its start:

New Bar Timer USDJPYM5

New Bar Timer indicator halfway:

New Bar Timer EURUSDM15

New Bar Timer indicator near its end:

New Bar Timer AUDUSDM30

You might ask: what if the market is closed (especially during weekends) when price is virtually still? During such times the timer will simply appear static. It will just show the time since price stopped until the market opens again or when the price resumes movement.

Other features include:

  • Sound Alert every time a new bar is formed, and
  • You can change the position of the timer to either upper left or upper right hand side of the chart.

You can get Trading Indicator Lab’s nifty New Bar Timer indicator here.

Happy Trading! 🙂