In this article, we will explore the Chart-in-Chart indicator for MT4, which allows traders to display the price action of additional symbols in sub-windows on the main chart.
The Chart-in-Chart indicator shows the price action for an additional symbol in a sub-window on the main chart, allowing bar-by-bar comparisons of price action on the main chart symbol against the subsidiary symbol.
You can add multiple copies of the indicator to a chart in order to show multiple extra symbols. In the following example the main EURUSD chart has sub-windows showing GBPUSD, AUDUSD, and JPYUSD:
You can choose to invert prices, e.g. so that USDJPY is shown as JPYUSD (as in the above example).
Although the sub-window cannot provide the full functionality of a main MT4 chart, you can add popular technical indicators such as moving averages and envelopes to the display, and you can choose to display the levels of open positions and pending orders.
How to Install Chart-in-Chart indicator?
To download and install the Pro Trading Tools please follow these steps:
- Login to MyFXTM dashboard > Trading Signals > Pro Trading Tools
- Download FX Blue or Trading Central for your Platform (Meta Trader 4 or Meta Trader 5)
- Run the dowloaded FX Blue and Trading Central files and apply them to your chosen MetaTrader Platform when prompted.
- Relaunch the MetaTrader platform. You’ll find your FX Blue* and Trading Central tools in the ‘Navigator panel under ‘Indicators’ and/or ‘Expert Advisors’.
Using the Chart-in-Chart indicator
Adding the indicator to a chart
You add the Chart-in-Chart indicator to a chart in the usual MT4 way, either by dragging it from the Navigator onto a chart, or by double-clicking on it in the Navigator. You can also use standard MT4 features such as adding the indicator to your list of Favorites, or assigning a Hotkey to it.
You need to turn on the “Allow DLL imports” setting in the “Common” tab of the indicator’s options:
Choosing the symbol
You set the symbol to display using the Symbol parameter in the Inputs tab.
The symbol must be present in the MT4 market watch, and you should include any suffix which your account has for symbol names, e.g. EURUSD+
To display more than one symbol, you simply add multiple copies of the indicator to the chart.
Inverting prices
You can invert prices by turning on the option on the Inputs tab. For example, this will convert USDJPY into JPYUSD.
Drawing style and colors
You can use the Inputs tab to choose between different drawing styles:
- Price candles
- Line showing close price only
- Lines showing high and low prices
You can set the colour of the candle “wick”, or of the close or high and low lines, using the first of the colour parameters. For candles, you can also set different colours for up (“bull”) and down (“bear”) bars.
Hovering the mouse over a candle, or over the close or high and low lines, displays a pop-up tooltip giving the price values at that point in time.
Current price
By default, the indicator will draw a horizontal line showing the current (bid) price. You can change the colour of this line using the setting on the Inputs tab. Changing the colour to “none” turns off the line.
Trade levels
You can turn on the display of trade levels:
- Entry price for open positions
- S/L and T/P of open positions
- Entry price for pending orders
Each of these settings has a different colour parameter on the Inputs tab. Choosing a colour other than “None” turns on the display of this information. Hovering the mouse over one of these lines will then show information about the open position or pending order.
(If you invert prices, then the display of trade levels is also inverted. For example, a USDJPY buy will be shown as a JPYUSD sell, and a buy-limit will be shown as a sell-stop.)
Technical indicators
The sub-window cannot provide the full functionality of a main MT4 chart – for example, you cannot drop an indicator from the Navigator onto the sub-window in order to add it to the price display for the extra symbol –but you can choose to include some popular technical indicators in the price display.
The Inputs tab contains 5 blocks of settings which you can use to define technical indicators. Each of these has a choice of indicator, a color, a line-style, and parameters for the indicator.
The indicators which are available are as follows:
- SMA (simple moving average)
- EMA (exponential moving average)
- SMMA (smoothed moving average)
- LWMA (linear-weighted moving average)
- Bollinger band
- Envelope based on SMA
- Envelope based on EMA
- Parabolic SAR
- Yesterday’s daily (D1) close price
- Yesterday’s daily (D1) high and low prices
- Fixed price (equivalent to drawing a manual horizontal line on the chart)
The meaning of the “parameter 1” and “parameter 2” settings depends on the type of indicator:
Technical indicator | Parameter 1 | Parameter 2 |
SMA | Period for moving average | (not used) |
EMA | Period for moving average | (not used) |
SMMA | Period for moving average | (not used) |
LWMA | Period for moving average | (not used) |
Bollinger bands | Period for moving average | Number of deviations |
Envelope (SMA or EMA) | Period for moving average | Deviation % |
Parabolic SAR | Step value | Maximum value |
D1 close | (not used) | (not used) |
D1 high and low | (not used) | (not used) |
Fixed price | Level for price line | (not used) |