Article-22572-Megaphone-Pattern-Detection-In-MQL5

This repository is an article-derived reference project based on the original MQL5 article. It does not claim to reproduce the full original source code unless files are explicitly attached.

Overview

This project documents the MQL5 implementation of a custom indicator for automatic megaphone pattern detection, also known as a broadening formation. The article describes a rule-based workflow for:

• detecting swing highs and swing lows,
• refining detected swings to true local extremes,
• drawing upper and lower expanding trend lines,
• validating structure integrity,
• confirming bullish breakout conditions,
• projecting stop loss and take profit levels from pattern geometry.

The article focuses primarily on the bullish detection path, while stating that the bearish variant follows similar logic.

Original Article

• Article ID: 22572
• Author: Israel Pelumi Abioye
• Publication date: 2026.05.27
• Category: Indicators
• URL: https://www.mql5.com/en/articles/22572

Repository Purpose

This repository should be treated as a reference or reconstruction project derived from the article text and embedded code excerpts.

Its purpose is to preserve the technical design and partial implementation details of an MQL5 indicator that detects megaphone formations on-chart. It is useful for:

• studying pattern-detection logic in MQL5,
• reconstructing an indicator from article snippets,
• understanding chart-object-based visualization and validation,
• extending the logic toward bearish structures or Expert Advisor workflows.

Key Concepts

• Megaphone / broadening formation
• Swing point detection using fixed left/right confirmation depth
• Lookback-window scanning over recent bars only
• Sequential structure building with four anchors:
• S1: first swing high
• S2: first swing low
• S3: second swing high, higher than S1
• S4: second swing low, lower than S2
• Swing refinement to true extremes within each leg
• Trend line integrity validation using candle close checks
• Proportional expansion filter to reject distorted formations
• Breakout confirmation after pattern completion
• SL/TP projection based on distance between trend line boundaries
• Chart object management with prefixed object names and cleanup on deinitialization

Algorithm / Architecture Summary

The article presents the indicator as a staged detection pipeline:

1. Scan a fixed historical window

• Example value shown: look_back = 300
• Processing runs once per newly completed bar using a stored bar timestamp.

2. Detect initial swing structure

• Swing highs/lows are validated with a configurable depth such as SwingLookback = 3.
• A bullish candidate is formed by finding:
• a swing high,
• then a swing low,
• then a higher swing high,
• then a lower swing low.

3. Refine anchor points

• The initial swing points are adjusted to the actual highest high / lowest low inside each swing leg.
• The article uses ArrayMaximum, ArrayMinimum, and Bars() to locate these true extremes.

4. Draw trend lines

• Upper boundary connects the refined first and second highs.
• Lower boundary connects the refined first and second lows.
• Objects are created only if they do not already exist.

5. Validate structure integrity

• The upper line is invalidated if any candle closes above it before the breakout stage.
• The lower line is invalidated if any candle closes below it before breakout.
• A proportional growth rule limits overexpansion; the article example uses a 150% threshold relative to the initial range.

6. Monitor for breakout

• After the fourth swing forms, the lines are extended rightward.
• A bullish breakout is confirmed when a candle closes above the upper trend line.
• An additional check ensures the lower boundary was not violated before that breakout.

7. Project management levels

• Stop loss is placed at the midpoint of the vertical breakout-region range.
• Take profit is projected by adding the full structure height above the upper boundary.
• Both are visualized using chart objects and text labels.

The snippets indicate a chart-window custom indicator using object-based visualization rather than indicator buffers.

Mentioned or Attached Files

Explicitly attached files

No attached source files were available in the processed input.

Files mentioned in text only

The article includes inline MQL5 code fragments for an indicator implementation, including examples of:

• OnInit
• OnCalculate
• OnDeinit
• IsSwingHigh
• IsSwingLow
• DrawTrend
• DrawObject

A text-drawing helper named DrawTxt is referenced in the stop loss / take profit section, but its implementation was not included in the provided material.

Statistics

No article statistics were available in the provided input.

Tags

MQL5, MetaTrader 5, indicator, pattern detection, megaphone pattern, broadening formation, swing highs, swing lows, trend lines, breakout confirmation, technical analysis

Difficulty

Intermediate

The described implementation requires familiarity with:

• MQL5 custom indicators,
• timeseries array indexing,
• nested historical scans,
• chart object APIs,
• structural validation logic,
• state control across new bars.

Limitations

• The full original source code is unavailable in the provided input.
• Only article text and partial code excerpts were available.
• Article metadata such as article ID, author, category, publication date, and URL was not included in the provided material.
• The bearish implementation is described conceptually but not fully shown in code.
• Some helper functionality is referenced but not fully defined in the excerpts, such as text-label drawing.
• This repository should not be presented as a verified production-ready trading system without further reconstruction, testing, and validation.

Reference

Original source: https://www.mql5.com/en/articles/22572