Calculating Money Flow Index with a Ring Buffer in MQL5

Summary

This technical reference describes a reusable MQL5 class for calculating and accessing the Money Flow Index (MFI) through a ring buffer. Initialization lets users set the indicator period, smoothing method, applied price and volume types, buffer capacity, and series orientation. The class accepts either full arrays of open, high, low, close, and volume data or individual bar values, making it possible to update the calculation within an indicator workflow.

The reference explains that values can be retrieved through indexing like a conventional array and notes that ring-buffer indexing follows time-series ordering. It outlines example programs that calculate MFI from price series and that apply MFI again to a previously calculated MFI series. This is implementation documentation rather than trading research: it does not define a signal strategy, report predictive performance, or discuss parameter selection. Users need the referenced supporting classes and must account for required historical bars and the meaning of the chosen volume input.

Key ideas

• The class calculates MFI incrementally using a fixed-capacity ring buffer.
• Initialization configures the period, smoothing, price, volume, and buffer settings.
• Calculations can use complete price arrays or individual bar values.
• The ring buffer can be indexed in time-series order and used as input to another calculation.
• The reference documents software use, not trading performance or signal validity.

Tags

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.