Setting Up a Data Feed and Broker Connection
In this section I will walk you through the steps to setting up MultiCharts to enable creating price charts configured correctly.
We will cover:
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- Adding and Configuring a Data Feed
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- Sessions and Settings
Data Feed
MultiCharts is a standalone piece of charting and trading software. It is not a broker which offers charting software like Tradestation is for example. In order to create a price chart of an instrument, we first have to load the price data.
This is done by connecting a data feed from either a data provider for example iqfeed or broker who also provides data for example LMAX.
At the time of writing one of my brokers is LMAX Global and I am very satisfied with the connection between LMAX and MultiCharts.
Take a look at the list of supported data feeds compatible with MultiCharts here:
https://www.multicharts.com/features/data-feeds
Note that you can use a separate data feed to your broker. And if you aren’t planning to use MultiCharts to place trades through, you can use a data feed only and not a broker too.
Price data can also be imported into MultiCharts from a downloaded file but I’m not going to cover that here as that is more complicated and for most users won’t be necessary.
Once you have a data feed you will need to connect it to MultiCharts. See their guide on how to connect brokers and data feeds HERE
Tip: Some brokers allow you to open a demo account and then you can connect MultiCharts to access the broker’s data feed. This is a good way to get started with MultiCharts. You can then use a decent amount of historical data to begin backtesting and developing trading strategies.
Adding and Configuring the Data
In this section I am going to share with you the settings I use for spot Forex. It is not necessary to use the same settings as I do but to replicate my strategy results using the same strategy code and inputs it is best to use the same as I do.
The settings are the default ones which I first used from Oanda’s data feed. Although that’s not to say Oanda haven’t changed their defaults since.
The settings are found in the QuoteManager. Open the QuoteManager window by clicking on the button in the toolbar as shown below.
QuoteManager Button found in ToolBar
Note: make sure your data feed is connected at this stage.
Now you have to add each instrument individually before being able to see it on a chart.
In the menu in QuoteManager click “Instrument”, “Add Symbol”, “From Data Source..” then find your data source from the list.
With Oanda you can now type “*” in the box to show all available symbols. The same with LMAX but make sure you select the “Forex” tab.
You should now get a list of symbols. Click on the symbol and click “Add”
Symbol List in QuoteManager
Once you have added the desired symbols you can review the settings.
Sessions
Back in the main QuoteManager window, find the instrument you wish to change or view settings for. Double click to open the “Edit Symbol” box.
Go to the “Sessions” tab and check you have 5 sessions per week starting Sunday and ending Friday. Below you can see 2 screenshots. 1 shows session times for Oanda 17:00 – 16:59 and the other for LMAX 17:05 – 17:00. I also use data from interactive Brokers and their session starts 17:30 – 17:00. Note these are based on exchange timezone which is normally EST New York time for Forex.
But you probably don’t need to worry about changing the session settings.
Session for Oanda
Session for LMAX
Settings
In the “Settings” tab is where you might want to change the settings to match what I use. If you don’t change them it’s not a problem, it just means your inputs for a stop loss or profit target will be different by a few decimal places.
So you can leave your settings as your default but adjust the strategy stop loss decimal place etc.
The sessions discussed above stay the same for all Forex pairs for that broker. However the settings change (at least the ones I use do) for each Forex pair individually.
There are 2 groups which the Forex pairs are put into; JPY and non JPY pairs.
For example JPY pairs are the likes of EUR/JPY, USD/JPY, GBP/JPY etc.
All other pairs for example EUR/USD, AUD/USD, EUR/GBP, USD/CHF, USD/CAD use the second group of settings.
In the screenshot below you can see the settings in the lower half of the window I use for JPY pairs.
JPY Settings
And in the next screenshot below you can see the settings I use for non JPY pairs
Non – JPY Settings
Now the data feed is connected we can start downloading price data and create some charts. I cover this in the section Creating a Price Chart
MultiCharts User Guide Index:
MultiCharts – Download and Install
MultiCharts – Data Feed and Broker Connection
MultiCharts – Creating a Price Chart
MultiCharts – Backtesting a Trading Strategy