Best MetaTrader 5 Indicators for Beginner Traders

August 10, 2021
Milton Prime Research
  • There are numerous indicators available for MT5
  • While there are some indicators that you should purchase, there also are many free MetaTrader 5 indicators
  • MT5 indicators are used to detect the trends in the market
  • Using MT5 Forex indicators makes trading easier

What Are MT5 Indicators?

MetaTrader 5 Indicators Explained: MT5 technical indicators are software created to help traders identify market trends.

Forex trading technical indicators help traders predict the future price movements in the market according to the market history. Many things can be considered indicators. However, in most cases, Forex indicators are custom pieces of software that can be applied to the trading platform.

There are numerous Forex MetaTrader 5 indicators available in the market, making trading easier for both experienced and beginner traders. Thanks to the Forex trading indicators, you can better identify trends in the market and understand when and how to open correct trades.

Among the Forex trading indicators available on MetaTrader 5, you can find both paid and free indicators. MetaTrader 5 is a very popular trading platform worldwide, and there are millions of people who are using it.

Because of such popularity, many people are creating indicators suitable for this platform. That said, MT5 also comes with pre-installed trading indicators. In most cases, you can find dozens of indicators available on the trading platform.

Additionally, if you have enough skills, you can create an indicator of your own. Finding indicators online is not hard either. There are numerous forums and websites online where people sell indicators or give them out for free.

So, let’s discuss the best MetaTrader 5 indicators and see how they work.

What Are The Best MT5 Indicators?

As we have already said, there are hundreds of indicators available online. These indicators help traders better understand the market trends and tell how the prices could change according to the market’s historical data.

However, not all indicators can be suitable for you. According to your trading style and the strategy that you are using, some might be useless. Because of this, it is very important to find the Forex trading indicators that fit your trading style and the asset that you are trading.

Also, what many people do is that they are using technical indicators to confirm the direction market could take. This strategy is used very frequently to ensure that the positions opened by traders are accurate.

Using technical indicators in conjunction with fundamental analysis can be very rewarding for traders to understand the market from different angles. Among some of the best MT5 indicators you can find:

  • AMA
  • MACD
  • Bollinger Bands
  • Williams’ Percent Range

Let’s discuss the above-mentioned indicators and see how they can be used for detecting market trends.

AMA

While talking about MetaTrader 5 best indicators, one of the first indicators that come to mind is the Adaptive Moving Average, known as AMA. This technical indicator is very popular among traders and is used very frequently for conducting a moving average in the market.

In general, moving averages are some of the most used technical indicators in the Forex trading market. These indicators are used to determine the market trends and understand more about the potential reversal points in the trading market.

In the Forex trading market, the two most used averages are the exponential and simple moving average. Simply put, AMA uses the recent price movement history in the market to understand the possible changes in the market.

A very important thing about this indicator is that it considers the moving average and the volatility in the market. Added to your chart, this indicator can be used to find different types of trends in the market and spot the most essential points in the market.

It is a very easy and straightforward indicator to use and has multiple parameters to make it more suitable for your trading style and strategy. Below, you can see the AMA indicator added to the MetaTrader 5 EUR/USD chart. The AMA indicator is shown with a red line.

metatrader 5 indicators list

MACD

MACD, short for Moving Average Convergence/Divergence, is one of the most popular MT5 Forex indicators. This trend-following dynamic indicator is used by millions of traders every day. It offers very useful information about the correlation between two moving averages of a price of a certain currency pair.

This MACD indicator shows the difference between a 26-period and 12-period Exponential Moving Averages, known as EMA. In most cases, people use MACD in three different ways. They are crossovers, overbought/oversold conditions, and divergences.

A very simple rule that many follow while using this indicator is to sell when the MACD falls below the signal line.

Very frequently, MACD is displayed with a histogram. This shows the distance between the MACD and the signal line. This can help you understand when a certain momentum is high or low.

In most cases, MetaTrader 5 comes with this indicator pre-installed. MACD is one of the most popular MetaTrader 5 trend indicators and is used by millions of traders worldwide. metatrader 5 custom indicators

You can see how the MACD indicator looks on the MT5 chart above. The MACD is added to the GBP/USD candlestick chart and is shown below the candles. To add this indicator to your chart, you should go to the indicators section of your trading platform, then click Oscillators, scroll down and double-click MACD. Then, you can set your preferred setting, such as colors, for example, and the indicator will be added to your chart.

Bollinger Bands

When discussing MetaTrader 5 indicators list, it is impossible to continue without talking about one of the most popular trading indicators worldwide, called Bollinger Bands. This indicator can be handy for traders to determine overbought and oversold levels and can be used as a trend-following tool.

By using Bollinger bands, you can better monitor the breakouts in the market. One of the main reasons for its popularity is that it is a straightforward trading tool, and can be very useful for experienced and retail traders. Bollinger Bands are among the most used MT5 trend indicators.

metatrader 5 signal indicator

The USD/JPY chart above shows how the Bollinger Bands indicator looks applied on a candlestick chart on MT5. As you can tell, when the market is stable and there is no big movement, the trends are closer together, however, once the activity in the market increases, the lines, in the case of the indicator called bands, move further from each other.

In most cases, just like on our chart above, the Bollinger Bands are applied to the chart with three lines. These three lines are the upper band, lower band, and the middle line between the bands. The middle line is the simple moving average, while the bottom and top lines are bands of the indicator.

To add Bollinger Bands Forex MT5 indicators to your chart, you will have to go to the MT5 indicators, go to trend indicators, double-click the Bollinger Bands, and set the settings according to your preferences.

Williams’ Percent Range

Among the most popular MT5 indicators list is the Williams’ Percent Range, simply referred to as %R, or Williams’ %R. It is a momentum indicator that is used to detects where the last closing price is relative to the highest and lowest prices of a certain time. This indicator can be used by traders who want to know when the asset is overbought or oversold.

This indicator moves between 0 and -100 and is used to find the entry and exit levels in the market. This indicator is very same as another very popular technical indicator, called the Stochastic oscillator. If the indicator is above -20, it means that the asset is overbought, and if it is below -80, it means that the asset is oversold.

The GBP/USD candlestick chart below shows the Williams’ Percent Range. This indicator can be very popular indicator and mostly comes pre-installed with the MetaTrader 5 trading platform.

best metatrader 5 indicators

How To Download MT5 Custom Indicators

MT5 indicators explained: The best place to get indicators is the official MQL website

As we have already noted in our guide, while using MT5 for trading, you have the opportunity to get additional indicators other than the ones that come pre-installed on the trading platform. While there are some indicators that you might have to pay for, there also are many other MetaTrader 5 custom indicators available for free download.

There are numerous places you can get reliable and well-developed trading indicators from. However, it is always a better idea to trust official providers. The MQL website is a place where you can find some of the best indicators in the market.

MQL offers traders the ability to upload the trading indicators that they have created, thus, you will be able to find hundreds of MT5 custom indicators on the website. It is not easy to find the indicator that works best for you, however. One thing to remember is to always make sure that you are using indicators that can meet your trading needs.

There are several steps that every trader should follow to find a good indicator. They are:

  • Step 1: Understand what type of trader you are and what you need from the indicator
  • Step 2: Go to the official website of MQL
  • Step 3: Search for a page called CodeBase
  • Step 4: Go through different types of indicators and see how they work for you
  • Step 5: It is always a good idea to test indicators using a demo account first
  • Step 6: Now that you feel comfortable using the indicator, you can move on to the live account

Why Are MT5 Indicators Important For FX Traders?

Understanding MT5 indicators is a very important thing for traders for several reasons. The most important reason is that the indicators available on MetaTrader 5 are very easy to use and can help you better understand the market movements. In fact, you can also use the majority of the MT5 indicators on mobile phones. There are many MetaTrader 5 mobile indicators available in the market.

Technical indicators work in a very interesting way: according to the historical data of the market, they offer you very important information about the market. Depending on the information that you receive from the trading indicator, you can make better and more accurate, as well as confident decisions about your positions.

In general, using MT5 indicators can make you a better trader, as you will be able to better understand the price movements in the market.

Forex Calendars & Filtered Charts

Other than using the technical indicators for Forex trading, many traders are also very closely following the fundamentals in the market. One of the best things that you can do to make sure that you are up to date with the ongoing events in the market is to use the Forex calendars.

Forex calendars act as a very important tool for traders to stay connected with the important announcements that can influence the price movements of currency pairs. As for the filtered charts, they are a great way to receive only the most important information from the charts.

Faster Analysis

Forex trading indicators are doing a very hard job for you. The indicators are going back to the chat history, analyze them, and give you information about the state of the market. Done without indicators, this process can take several hours and when you are done, the information might not even be relevant anymore.

Thanks to the technical indicator, analyzing the market and previous price movements take only a few minutes. Thanks to this, you can make decisions very fast and don’t spend too much time to analysis.

What Did We Learn From This MT5 Forex Indicator Article?

There are numerous Forex trading indicators available for MetaTrader 5, all of them created and designed to make Forex trading easier for you.

While there are many paid Forex indicators available in the market, you can also find MT5 free indicators online very easily.

Downloading Forex trading indicators for MT5 is very easy and takes only a few minutes.

Among the most popular paid & free MT5 indicators are AMA, MACD, Bollinger Bands, and Williams’ Percent Range among many others.

While Forex technical indicators are very important, there are many traders who are using them in conjunction with fundamental analysis.

Detailed Insight On Forex MT5 Indicators

How To Add Indicators To MT5?

Adding MetaTrader 5 free indicators, as well as paid versions, is very easy. All you have to do is to go to the indicators menu in the MT5, choose the type of indicator you want to add to your chart, choose the indicator that fits your needs, double-click it, set the settings according to your preferences, and the indicator will automatically be added to your chart.

How To Download MT5 Indicators?

To download the MT5 indicators, the best solution is to go to the official website of MQL. You can find hundreds of MetaTrader 5 signal indicators and other types of them as well. To download the indicators, you should just click the download button, after which, you can add the indicator to your MetaTrader 5.

Can You Use MT4 Indicators On MT5?

Sadly, the majority of MT4 indicators do not work on MT5. The main reason for this is the difference between the coding languages of the trading platforms. The MetaTrader 4 uses MQL4, while the MT5 uses MQL5. However, this does not mean that you can’t use MT4 indicators on MT5. In most cases, there are versions of MT4 indicators created for MT5 which you can find very easily online.