In this article, we explore the functionality of the Spread Recorder indicator, designed to enhance trading insights by monitoring and recording key aspects of spread dynamics. The Spread Recorder does four things:

• It shows the current spread (in pips)
• It draws a chart of the spread, showing the minimum and maximum values within each bar as well as an average
• It can save and re-load its history, so that the display does not always start off fresh and blank when you add the indicator to a chart. This history file can also be opened in Microsoft Excel or other spreadsheet software.
• It can generate alerts if the spread exceeds a threshold. Alerts can be displayed on screen, or pushed out by email or by MT4/5 push notification

How to install the Spread Recorder 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 Spread Recorder indicator

Adding the indicator to a chart

You add the indicator to a chart in the usual MT4/5 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 MT4/5 features such as adding the indicator to your list of Favorites, or assigning a Hotkey to it.

You can then control the indicator's display and behaviour using the settings on its Inputs tab.

Graphical display

The indicator can display four separate things. Each of these can be turned on and off:

• A label showing the current spread (by default, in the top right of the indicator's panel)
• A chart of the average spread within each bar
• A chart of the minimum and maximum spread within each bar
• A line across the chart showing the current spread

The average value can be drawn either as a line or as individual points. The minimum/maximum range can be drawn in a variety of styles (with slightly different options for MT4 and MT5 because of their different capabilities).

History file

By default, the indicator will save its log of the average, minimum, and maximum spread in a file on disk, and reload it when the indicator next starts up. (If you turn this off then the indicator will start off blank, with no history.)

You can open this log file in Microsoft Excel and other spreadsheet software. Please note that you should take a copy of the file and then open that copy in Excel. If you open the original file which the indicator is using, then it may become locked and the indicator may be unable to save changes into it.

You can find the history log as follows:

• Use File / Open Data Folder
• Go into the Files subdirectory
• Go into the Spreadlog subdirectory
• Take a copy of the file for the chart symbol

By default, the indicator generates comma-separated (CSV) files. You can change this to TSV by altering the separator setting to \t. Please note: changing the separator will prevent the indicator from being able to re-load any existing history.

Alerts

The indicator can generate an alert when the spread goes above a threshold (in pips). You can choose to issue the alert in any or all of the following ways:

• A pop-up alert message on screen
• A sound
• An email (via the email settings in MT4/5)
• A push notification (via the settings in MT4/5)

You can set the text to be used for emails and push notifications. This text can include the following variables: