Autochartist - the heavy artillery of chart analysis

Hello, trader friends!

Analytics has always taken a lot of effort and time, especially in trading. Despite all attempts to optimize processes, human resources have always been a limitation. The arrival of full computerization brought a real revolution to forex analytics, and at present automatic analytical tools have not displaced the outdated manual approach, but complement it organically.

Today in this review we will talk about the set of indicators Autochartist, a multifaceted analytical tool whose broad capabilities are available to every forex trader. We will also discuss ways of using the indicator on the web platform and in the Metatrader 4 terminal, as well as the good and bad sides of this product.

Autochartist is the most advanced tool for scanning the market and identifying trading inefficiencies (opportunities to gain an edge). The tool is a standalone software product and is provided by a number of brokers, for example Alpari, Roboforex, Forex4you.

The program includes:

The program is in a state of constant market scanning, as a result of which it manages to automatically identify chart patterns, Fibonacci patterns, as well as support and resistance levels while they are still in their early stages. Of course, the obvious advantage of identifying patterns before they are fully formed is that it allows you, at a minimum, to set a limit for your current trading, or to enter a position as early as possible on the corresponding signal.

Volatility analysis, in turn, offers statistical information on the volatility of prices of traded instruments, providing a forecast for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, and 24 hours. Besides the fact that by knowing volatility indicators you can decide which instrument is better to trade at the moment, based on this information you can also adjust stop-loss and take-profit levels, which should preferably be set beyond the specified price range.

After you have downloaded and launched the program setup file, Autochartist will prompt you to choose the installation language. If you chose Russian, the following window will appear:

This stage is quite simple; you only need to confirm the terms of use agreement and click "Next." The installer will also suggest choosing an installation directory, so if you have several versions of the terminal installed on your computer, it is worth choosing the one that belongs to the broker that provided this program.

After that, all the necessary files and indicators are already in the trading terminal folder. If you launch the Autochartist Web Application indicator, on first launch you will be prompted to configure some platform parameters, such as language, time zone, and notification settings.

To apply the indicator, hold down the left mouse button over the icon with the name, then drag the indicator onto the current chart window and release it. Since the indicators request data from the Autochartist website, when the settings window appears do not forget to allow the use of DLL libraries.The system consists of six indicators:

Main parameters requiring configuration:

The indicator also provides broad possibilities for configuring the display of the information panel and trading levels, as well as setting filters, which are counterparts of the filters for the web platform that we will discuss later.

The chart pattern indicator draws several recent patterns on the chart and also provides their estimated analysis.

Also, the filter settings allow you to immediately filter out the most poorly formed patterns. We will discuss the filter settings capabilities in more detail in the section on creating a search query.

The information panels of the pattern indicator, Fibonacci figures, and key levels have 4 control buttons.

By dragging the first icon, you can change the position of the window on the chart. By lightly dragging the corresponding control arrows left or right, you can switch between the found patterns. The number of the current pattern is indicated by the fourth icon, and the count itself goes in a circle, so navigation is quite simple and it will be difficult to get lost.

Let us consider some price patterns and ways of using them in trading.

To get to the web application, place the Autochartist Web Application indicator on the chart. Or click the Log in button on the corresponding page of your broker's website.

The trading panel consists of 5 tabs:

The main purpose of the trading opportunities tab is contained in its name, that is, to show the current forming patterns and provide a forecast based on this data.

By clicking on the patterns window, you will be able to see an enlarged picture of the forming pattern.

To the right of the chart there is a window with an analysis of the quality of the found pattern.

Below is the Results Filter, which consists of chart patterns with categories of new and completed, Fibonacci patterns with categories of new and completed figures, as well as key levels with categories of breakouts and approaches. Using the filter, from a large number of trading opportunities you can choose the ones that are most interesting to you.

In the search window you have the opportunity to add a new search query, while you have a choice between a group of instruments or a single symbol. The search query will limit the area for the patterns being studied.

The "Volatility Analysis" tab provides a forecast of the size of the price change range during the intraday period.

"Performance Statistics" shows how many patterns for which symbols reached the predicted values.

The "Messages and alerts" tab allows you to set up automatic sending of emails with a technical forecast, signals about forecast confirmations, and economic news. You can also set the language and delivery time of alerts from 3 independent options: the Asian, European, and American sessions.

On the "Trading community" tab you will find links to the following additional materials:

In fact, the so-called "search query" does not search for anything. The purpose of creating a query is to filter the selection of symbols and parameters according to the relevant criteria of your study. In other words, search queries are needed to study which patterns on which pairs work best. By default, you already have two filters (search queries) configured, these are a selection of the most popular trading instruments and instruments of the forex market intraday periods.

The result of a search query is either a predefined or a criteria-selected group of symbols. Each search query applies an additional customizable set of filters to the symbol selection.

To add a new search, click the "New Search" button located in the search query list window.

The functionality of the "simple search" can be described as "Grouping," which includes selecting a preset group of symbols (as a rule, groups consist of symbols from one exchange or one time period), or entering a list of symbols manually.

After that, you can edit the search name if you wish.

To enter a list of symbols manually, select the "Symbol" checkbox, then start typing the symbol name until a drop-down list appears from which you need to select the desired symbol. Now it remains to choose the time period from the drop-down list below and click "Add" to add the instrument to the list.

The text field at the bottom of the window is responsible for the search name. The name changes automatically and corresponds to the name of the selected group or symbol, but you can also use your own.

Finally, by clicking "Create Search Query," the search will be created and added to the general list.

To open the advanced settings, click the spoiler labeled "Advanced Search" at the bottom of the simple search settings window.

After that, a list with additional criteria will open, divided into three tabs: Patterns, Fibonacci Patterns, Key Levels. These 3 tabs contain additional settings that can be used to refine the search query.

Be careful when setting additional restrictions; restrictions that are too tight will cause the program to find far fewer trading opportunities, or even stop finding them altogether.

Next, let us discuss each section of the advanced settings separately.

This function will be especially useful when trading stocks or contracts for difference, as it allows you to set the minimum and maximum price values in the corresponding text fields. For example, this may be needed to filter out stocks that are too cheap or too expensive.

After the final formation of the pattern, the price can move either in the same direction as before or in the opposite one. In this case, you can limit the selection only to patterns with continuation in the direction of the trend, or only to patterns with an assumed reversal.

The length of a pattern is measured in bars on the price chart. That is, if the pattern length equals 24 on a chart with a 60-minute period, it means that the pattern was forming over the course of a day.

Allows you to set a restriction to bullish-only or bearish-only signals.

To measure the visual appeal of a pattern, Autochartist uses five additional functions:

A more proportional and symmetrical pattern will obviously be more visually attractive. The final quality score is the arithmetic mean of all the other scores.

Quality is set by values from 0 to 10, where 10 is the best quality and 0 is the worst. But, of course, the main thing to understand is that these settings define the minimum quality requirements for patterns; that is, at a value of 0 the filter will let through all patterns regardless of quality, and at a limit of 10 only the highest-quality ones. However, such high-quality patterns are extremely rare, so you should not set extreme values, especially if you trade actively on forex.

In the advanced section, you can configure the use of 16 types of chart patterns. Also, clicking the icon in the lower-right corner of each pattern opens a detailed description of the figure.

The tab for Fibonacci patterns also has settings for the range, direction, and length of the pattern.

The quality indicator has the following settings:

You have the option to create a filter based on six Fibonacci patterns recognized by the program: 3-point correction, 3-point extension, ABCD, Butterfly, Gartley, 3-Drive.

The filter for support and resistance lines also has its own unique settings.

By default, any key level will have at least 3 points. In this case, you can increase this parameter up to 10.

Advantages of Autochartist

Disadvantages of Autochartist

Having Autochartist in their arsenal, a forex trader not only lightens their activity by getting rid of the routine work of recognizing chart patterns, but also reaches a qualitatively new level of technical analysis.

Autochartist is certainly an indispensable assistant, since it provides all the information necessary for trading, including trading signals and risk accounting. The program also includes several quality functions that reflect pattern characteristics such as accuracy, visual attractiveness, and time symmetry, which makes it possible to calculate further price development scenarios with enviable accuracy, as well as significantly improve the execution of forecasts.

Especially for beginners, the program will replace a study guide for identifying trading patterns on the chart, allowing them not only to check the pattern-recognition skills they already have, but also to try to improve them so that in the future they can find patterns "by eye".

Respectfully, Alexey Vergunov TradeLikeaPro.ru