Forex is a currency trading market. But you probably know all about forex, since you’re here! If not, read up on it!
- Wiki article - OK
- FXCM Retail Broker Free Metatarder Terminal - get demo account and see what forex trading is first hand!
Clj-forex is an in progress effort to create a non-graphical backend to various forex trading backends. Right now Metatrader is the focus. The ultimate goal of clj-forex is to create a robust library to allow the creation of EA (expert advisors) in the scripting language clojure. Expert advisors are programs which automatically trade the market, performing sell/buy orderes, changing stoplosses, using technical indicators, etc. They are useful for both automating parts of manual trading systems (performing trailing stops, expiration of market orders) and also for full out automated trading.
Indicators will be calculated java side using price bars retrieved from the backends. Integration of indicator data to various gui backends (i.e. at this time, Metatrader) will be supported. The only purpose of the forex backend is to allow access to spreads, current price, ability to buy/sell, etc.
Im not sure why noone has done this before, but integration of a scripting language to create eas is, in my opinion, vital. Integration of a lisp-like dialect, like clojure, will allow much more rapid creation and prototyping of eas. This combined with easy access to any java library (clojure is implemented on the java virtual machine) makes for a winning combination! Things like neural networks, database, and other such ‘advanced’ concepts can now be much more easily integrated than if we had used mql4.
Its like an artist! Give an artist more efficient tools in the toolbox and who knows what can be created! [And clojure is fun to learn anyways!]