AutoChartist is a software that is capable of automatically recognizing chart patterns and alerts you to trading opportunities. Autochartist scans the markets for you 24-hours a day which means you have more time available to concentrate on fine-tuning your trading strategy and improving your trading knowledge and skills.
AutoChartist is known as an Expert Advisor (EA) but it does not trade currency pairs on your behalf. Basically, it saves you valuable time by automating technical chart patterns using support and resistance levels, breakouts, wedges, triangles and more. The plug-in software allows you to monitor global financial markets, including foreign exchange, CFDs, cryptocurrencies, futures and equities.
In this in-depth guide you’ll learn:
- How does AutoChartist work?
- Why do forex traders use Autochartist?
- Why Autochartist was created
- How to install AutoChartist on MT4
And lots more…
Let’s dive right in…
Why do forex traders use Autochartist?
AutoChartist has become one of the most important trading tools for forex traders. It’s used for technical analysis to identify trading opportunities. The major benefit of AutoChartist is it filters out unwanted market data by using particular search criteria so that you only view the chart pattern data you need to make trading decisions.
AutoChartist is used in over 80 countries to view over 2 million charts a month. Its most useful function is to generate regular chart patterns which are formed by currency price movements. Forex traders use these chart patterns to anticipate the future direction of currency prices. This helps forex traders identify entry and exit points for trades.
Examples of commonly-used AutoChartist patterns
Head and Shoulders
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| Uptrend | Downtrend |
Cup and Handle
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Triangles
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How does AutoChartist work?
The software plugin works by scanning price data from the markets and generates developing patterns that signal a winning trade.
To further help you with your analysis of the forex markets, AutoChartist provides traders with the Power Stats application. Using this tool, users can identify the likelihood of downside or upside momentum of a currency price movement, as well as the expected and maximum price movements over various periods, allowing them to more accurately decide on stop loss and take profit order levels to manage their risks during trades.
What are some of the benefits of using the AutoChartist chart pattern identification platform?
️ The application scans the markets for profit opportunities 24 hours a day to give traders an early heads up whenever a pattern signaling a profitable trade develops.
️ The software provides timely visual and audio alerts whenever a pattern is identified. And every pattern identified is given a ‘quality score’ based on four unique characteristics, including clarity, uniformity and the strength of the initial trend.
It is ideal for beginning traders. If you are just starting out trading in the forex markets, it might take you years to learn how to identify trading patterns. With AutoChartist, the hard work has been done for you, and the only thing you need to do is decide whether or not you want to enter a trade and how much you would like to risk.
️ The platform can accommodate both breakout traders and swing traders by automatically charting resistance and support lines.
️ The site provides educational resources to help traders achieve a deeper understanding of trading patterns so that they’ll know how best to use them when they are identified.
Why Autochartist was created
Launched in 2004, AutoChartist was created to streamline market analysis and reduce time spent on forming technical chart patterns. Today, AutoChartist is used by the largest and most successful online retail brokers and financial institutions.
AutoChartist is a program that can identify chart patterns using technical indicators such as Fibonacci retracements. It monitors the markets 24 hours a day, alerting you to trading opportunities in real-time. … Its software is designed to identify trading opportunities for you based on support and resistance levels.
How you can get AutoChartist
AutoChartist is a MetaTrader Plugin. The program is free to use with both a demo and live account on MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5.
When using a demo account, remember that AutoChartist is not set in real-time. You experience the same functions as a live account but there is a slight delay in functionality.
Installation of the AutoChartist plugin on MetaTrader 4 (MT4), or MetaTrader 5 (MT5), is straightforward, with a link found under the platforms tab on FP Markets (figure 1.A). There’s also a step-by-step guide available here and a number of webinars available on YouTube.
How to install AutoChartist on MT4
Once the Autochartist Expert Advisor is downloaded to MetaTrader, the ‘Navigator’ panel will house Autochartist within the Expert Advisor’s folder and an Autochartist Risk Calculator within the ‘Indicator’s’ file
To activate the Autochartist tool, simply drag and drop on to a selected chart, which in this case is the USD/JPY H1 timeframe (figure 1.C). This opens an additional pop-up setting box – click ‘OK’ to work with default.
What the Autochartist tool does then is scan financial instruments contained within the ‘Market Watch’ window for trading opportunities. The more instruments you have registered, the more patterns you’ll see, categorised by numbered pages (red arrow). Therefore, it is a good idea to remove any markets you don’t trade from Market Watch (figure 1.D).
Autochartist does a superb job of highlighting markets exhibiting large price movement. As an example (figure 1.E), the CHF/JPY daily chart underlines a large down move comprised of seven candlesticks. The same can be seen on the GBP/CHF daily chart, displaying a notable move to the upside, involving twelve candles.
Autochartist is a program that can identify chart patterns using technical indicators such as Fibonacci retracements. It monitors the markets 24 hours a day, alerting you to trading opportunities in real time. Autochartist is often used on the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform, and you’ll get it for free when you download MT4 from IG
Features and benefits of Autochartist
Autochartist’s features are designed to identify patterns in charts, with the main benefit being the real-time insights it generates for market movements. Autochartist is constantly scanning the markets on your behalf, and it gives you price alerts whenever a new opportunity presents itself. Its software is designed to identify trading opportunities for you based on support and resistance levels.
Support and resistance levels are the building blocks of technical analysis, and many effective trading strategies can be based around them. This is because support and resistance are like glass floors and ceilings which are often seen to limit a market’s range of movement.
The reason these levels appear is due to the balance between buyers and sellers, or demand and supply. When there is more demand than supply, the price will rise. But, when there is more supply than demand, the price will fall.
Features of Autochartist
There are several features of Autochartist that traders might find useful. These include:
- Algorithms that automatically analyse the markets
- A customisable search pane
- A built-in price movement scanner
Algorithms that automatically analyse the markets
The main feature of Autochartist is that it can automatically scan the markets on your behalf, identifying new opportunities that you might have otherwise missed. Its analysis is based on algorithms, which it seamlessly integrates into trading platforms such as MT4.
A customizable search pane
The Autochartist search pane enables users to define the parameters of the markets that the program scans. It can be tailored to your individual trading style, or you can use it to search markets that are less familiar and find opportunities that you may not have otherwise thought about.
A built-in price movement scanner
Autochartist can highlight the range in which a price has moved for a given period. This can be done on an hourly or daily basis and it enables traders to clearly see how susceptible a market is to price changes.
Benefits of Autochartist
Aside from its features, there are also a number of benefits to using the Autochartist program. The benefits of Autochartist include:
- Chart pattern recognition
- Faster analysis
- Flexibility
- Alerts
Chart pattern recognition
The pattern-recognition capabilities of Autochartist are a significant benefit of the software. For instance, Autochartist can analyse different candlestick chart patterns using the Ichimoku Cloud, Bollinger bands and Fibonacci retracements – as well as a host of other technical indicators.
Faster analysis
Autochartist can save you a lot of time that you would otherwise dedicate to scanning the markets manually. Technical analysis and chart pattern recognition are laborious tasks for a trader, and by using Autochartist to carry them out, you can spend more time developing your trading strategies or learning about new techniques that you think might be useful for you.
Flexibility
Autochartist is a flexible product because it is capable of highlighting thousands of potential trades a month in a range of financial markets, including forex and indices. It can do this on either a CFD trading account on the MT4 platform
Alerts
Autochartist can also alert you to opportunities that you might not usually consider. For example, it might identify that a currency pair – USD/JPY for example – has become highly volatile following an announcement by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) or the Bank of Japan (BoJ).
By providing you with alerts, Autochartist can make it less likely that you will miss out on an opportunity to profit.
What to be aware of before using Autochartist
First and foremost, Autochartist is an automated market scanning program, designed to save you time by analysing the markets on your behalf. It can alert you to opportunities by using technical indicators such as Fibonacci retracements as part of its market scanning capabilities.
However, Autochartist is not capable of executing trades for you. While it can highlight a potential trade, it remains up to you to open and close your positions, perhaps in line with what Autochartist has suggested or made you aware of.
Equally, while programs like Autochartist can scan the markets on their operator’s behalf, they are not foolproof, and you should carry out your own technical analysis and fundamental analysis alongside Autochartist to confirm any opportunities that the program identifies.
How to use Autochartist
Before you use Autochartist, you’ll need to make an IG account and download MT4. The steps to do this are explained below:
1. Create a live IG account
For a demo MT4 account, visit our MT4 demo account creation page
2. Once you have an account, visit your ‘My IG’ dashboard
3. Click on ‘add an account at the bottom right of the screen
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4. Select an MT4 CFD account
5. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the download process
Once you have created an IG account and downloaded MT4, open the platform and log in. Autochartist can be found within MT4 by going to the ‘navigator’ window and clicking on ‘scripts’.
