Introduction to cTrader Indicators
What makes cTrader such a great platform is that it generally provides what most traders need. cTrader excels in the area of technical analysis indicators. Not only that, the platform looks slick and it’s easy to manipulate objects on the charts. Consider the appearance of some other platforms, that’s a major achievement. Many trading platforms out there are simply mind-boggling. Buttons are everywhere and they use every colour of the rainbow and more. Intuition alone won’t get you very far. Most trading platforms have a steep learning curve. The cTrader platform is very focused on providing dependable user experience. A lot of that comes from the design. Many of the merits of cTrader are inherited from the transparency of the platform, such as the quality of the execution, the inability of brokers being able to edit trade history, the wide range of order types and risk protection settings. Also what sets cTrader apart is the charting experience. In this article, we are going to explore cTrader Indicators.
How to Use cTrader Indicators
It’s very easy to use indicators on cTrader. On the desktop and web version of the platform, there are two ways that you can select and apply an indicator onto a chart.
Add cTrader Indicator Method #1
The first method is to use the cTrader context menu inside of any chart. The context menu has many options and controls, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with it. Many features and settings can be accessed from here.
- Right-click inside the chart which you want the indicator to be applied to. Just don’t click on another object, like another cTrader indicator.
- A context menu will present itself, hover over the “Indicators” option.
- Scroll through the different categories or search for the indicator you are looking for.
- Now a new window pops up. Here you can edit the properties of the symbol. Or just click “OK” to apply the defaults.
Add cTrader Indicator Method #2
The second method is to use the chart controls. Each chart has a ribbon of settings and options. This can be used to zoom in and out, change the chart type, time frame and of course, add cTrader Indicators.
- Place the mouse cursor on the f icon along the ribbon.
- Like in the previous instruction, a context menu presents itself.
- Find the indicator you are looking for and select it.
Modify cTrader Indicators
Once you have applied an indicator on cTrader you are able to customize it according to the settings available for the indicator. Different indicators have different options according to the nature of the particular indicator. The easiest way to do this is to right-click on the indicator you want to edit. As you do this, a new window will open and here you can adjust various settings. What you can change depends on the indicators itself. In most cases, you can change the appearance, such as the colours and line style and thickness. You could also change the indicator properties too, such as the number of levels shown, the periods calculated for each level and the source used for calculating the lines, such as Open, High, Low or Close.
Apply Indicators to cTrader Mobile App
If you are trading on the mobile version of the cTrader platform, you can still take advantage of the wide range of charting tools this platform has to offer. The controls vary slightly between iOS and Android, but in this case, the logic is the same. Once you are at the Watchlist screen, tap a symbol. This action takes you to the Symbol Overview. On this screen, you will see a full-screen icon inside the chart, tap it. That action takes you to the full-screen chart. There is a row of tools at the bottom of the screen. Tap on the f button. Now you can see the list of indicators applied to your chart. If this screen is empty, it means you do not have any indicators applied on the chart. You can delete and modify indicators from this screen. To add an indicator, just tap on the + icon. Now you will see a long list of all cTrader indicators listed in alphabetical order. Just find your favourite and apply it to your chart.
Learn More About Indicators on cTrader
We’ve published a number of articles which explain specific technical analysis indicators which are available on cTrader.
cTrader Indicators vs. Other Forex Trading Platforms
The range of technical analysis indicators inside of a trading platform is of high importance. Most traders learn technical analysis techniques on the most popular indicators. To examine the number of technical analysis indicators inside different forex trading platforms, you will see that cTrader is the clear winner by almost 30%. You should also notice that out-of-the-box MetaTrader 4 has the fewest indicators!
| Feature | cTrader | Sirix | MetaTrader 5 | xStation | MetaTrader 4 |
| Indicators | 65 | 51 | 38 | 33 | 30 |
List of Indicators on cTrader
As mentioned above, cTrader has the most indicators. These indicators fall under the categories of Trend, Oscillators, Volatility, Volume and Other (Miscellaneous).
Trend Indicators
Forex indicators that fall under the trend category are designed to identify trends by helping traders to spot uptrends and downtrends.
- Median
- Simple Moving Average
- Accumulative Swing Index
- Aroon
- Exponential Moving Average
- Welles Wilder Smoothing
- Directional Moving Average
- Parabolic SAR
- Supertrend
- Triangular Moving Average
- Time Series Moving Average
- Weighted Moving Average
Oscillator Indicators
Technical analysis indicators falling under the oscillator category are also designed to identify trends but in a specific way. The indicator takes two extreme values and builds a single line using different mathematical techniques to smooth the result
- Commodity Channel Index
- Cyber Cycle
- Detrended Price Oscillator
- Linear Regression RSquared
- Linear Regression Slope
- MACD Crossover
- MACD Histogram
- Mass Index
- Momentum Oscillator
- Price Oscillator
- Price ROC
- Rainbow Oscillator
- Relative Strength Index
- Stochastic Oscillator
- TRIX
- Ultimate Oscillator
- Vertical Horizon Filter
- Williams %R
Volatility Indicators
Volatility indicators are designed to highlight volatile conditions in the market.
- True Range
- Average True Range
- Linear Regression Forecast
- Bollinger Bands
- Chaikin Volatility
- Fractal Chaos Bands
- Standard Deviation
- Historical Volatility
- Keltner Channels
- Linear Regression Intercept
- Polynomial Linear Channels
- Tick Volume
Volume Indicators
The volume shows how interested or uninterested other traders are in a certain market. Therefore volume indicators attempt to show you insights generated from trading frequency and volume.
- Money Flow Index
- Negative Volume Index
- Ease of Movement
- On Balance Volume
- Positive Volume Index
- Price Volume Trend
- Trade Volume Index
- Volume Oscillator
- Volume ROC
Other (Miscellaneous) Indicators
The Other category contains a number of miscellaneous technical analysis indicators.
- Alligator
- Swing Index
- High Minus Low
- Typical Price
- Center of Gravity
- Fractals
- Heiken Ashi
- Ichimoku Kinko Hyo
- Pivot Points
- VIDYA
- Weighted Close
- Williams Accumulation Distribution
Custom Indicators on cTrader
With cTrader and the MetaTrader platforms, you are able to create and add your own indicators. However, many forex traders are unlikely to take advantage of this feature. This is usually because of the complexity of writing your own scripts. A lack of development expertise is a common reason. Many traders take advantage of the simplicity of buying indicators from vendors such as ClickAglo.
