What it does
FXP Currency Strength Meter breaks the forex market down into its eight major currencies: EUR, GBP, AUD, NZD, USD, CAD, CHF and JPY. It reads all 28 pairs formed by those currencies and plots one line per currency in a separate window, showing which currencies have been gaining and which losing over the chosen number of bars. A panel ranks them from strongest to weakest.
Broker symbol names are handled automatically: the indicator detects a prefix or suffix from the chart symbol (for example EURUSD.m), falls back to searching the symbol list, and simply skips pairs your broker does not offer.
How it works
- For each available pair and each chart bar, the indicator finds the matching bar on that pair and computes the percentage change over N bars: (close now - close N bars ago) / close N bars ago x 100.
- The change is added to the base currency and subtracted from the quote currency. A 0.5% rise in EURUSD adds 0.5 to EUR and -0.5 to USD.
- Each currency's strength is the average of its contributions across all pairs that include it (seven pairs per currency when all 28 are available).
- The lines therefore sum to roughly zero: strength is relative, not absolute.
- History is calculated once; afterwards only the newest bar is updated, on ticks and on a timer. If other symbols' history is still downloading at start-up, the indicator recalculates once the data is synchronized.
How to use it
Copy the .ex5 file into MQL5/Indicators and attach it to any forex chart. Pairs are added to Market Watch automatically; the first load can take a few seconds while history downloads.
The usual idea is to pair a strong currency against a weak one. If GBP sits at the top and JPY at the bottom, GBPJPY shows the widest strength gap. A rising line shows a currency gaining across the board, not just against one counterpart. Read about currency correlation to understand why many pairs move together, and remember that opening several trades on the same strong currency stacks the same risk.
Short look-backs (5 to 10 bars) react quickly but are noisy; longer ones (20 to 50) show the broader picture.
Settings
| Input | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Bars for the % change | 20 | Sensitivity of the lines. |
| History bars to calculate | 500 | How far back lines are drawn. |
| Symbol prefix | blank | Manual prefix; blank means auto-detect. |
| Symbol suffix | blank | Manual suffix; blank means auto-detect. |
| Show ranking panel | true | Ranking labels in the indicator window. |
| Panel font size | 9 | Ranking text size. |
| Refresh interval without ticks | 2 s | Timer for live updates. |
| Alert when strongest/weakest pair changes | false | One alert per bar. |
Limitations
- Strength is measured from closes on the chart timeframe; it lags turning points by design.
- Missing pairs reduce accuracy. The indicator name shows how many of the 28 pairs were found, and missing pairs are listed in the Experts log.
- Pairs trade at slightly different times, so bars on other symbols may not line up perfectly, especially around weekends and holidays.
- Calculating 28 symbols uses more resources than a single-symbol indicator; keep the history setting reasonable. Trading involves substantial risk of loss.