Spend a day with a trader who has been at it for five years and you will see a chart that is slightly different from everyone else's. A moving average calculated their own way. A band drawn from a rule they picked up years ago. A signal line they would not trade without.
The built-in indicator list covers the standard studies well. It cannot cover a personal variation that exists in one person's head. When a platform has no room for that line, the trader keeps a second charting tool open in another tab, and part of their attention lives there instead of on your prices.
Why Your Firm Should Care About One Line on a Chart
A trader's own indicator is a habit. They check it before every entry. Wherever it lives is where they do their thinking, and very often where they end up placing the trade.
If that line can sit on the eTrader chart, the reason to keep another platform open gets much weaker. The trader reads your prices, with their own tool, in the terminal where their account already is. We think that is worth more to a broker or prop firm than yet another built-in study.
From an Idea to a Line on the Chart
Traders write indicators in eTrader Code, either in a browser at code.etraderweb.com or in the Mac app, using Tide, eTrader's own trading language. Mistakes are flagged while they type, and the file is saved to their eTrader ID as they work.
In the eTrader web terminal, a Files menu in the top bar opens on an Indicators tab. From there a trader picks an indicator and presses Add to Chart. Remove from Chart takes it off again. A red Delete button removes the file itself, for the old experiments nobody needs anymore.
Same Settings Sheet, Same Legend
This is the part traders notice first. A custom indicator does not open a strange popup of its own. The gear in the chart legend brings up the same settings sheet the built-in indicators use, with the same Inputs and Style tabs and the same Reset Defaults and OK buttons. The eye in the legend hides it, and the remove button takes it off the chart, exactly as it would for a moving average that shipped with eTrader.
On the Style tab, each line the indicator draws has its own colour, thickness, drawing style and a switch to hide it. The chart remembers all of it. Which indicators are on, the values typed into their inputs and the colours picked for each line come back the next time the trader opens the chart.
Updates are handled with some care. When the author of an indicator releases a new version, the trader keeps the style changes they made. Anything they never touched takes the new version's look.
The Chart and the Backtest Agree
A custom line on a chart is only useful if it matches what the trader tested. The eTrader chart draws a trader's indicator with the same engine that runs backtests and cloud robots. There is no second, approximate copy written just for the browser.
That was a deliberate choice. A chart that shows one value while a backtest used another is worse than having no custom indicators at all, because the trader stops trusting both. The chart redraws the indicator as prices tick, so the line on screen stays current.
On a phone: a trader can switch an indicator already in their library on or off from the chart's indicator list. Adding indicators and managing files stays in the web terminal on a desktop.
eTrader Code is included in the platform. To see the full product, read What Is eTrader Code?, and for automation that keeps running with the trader away, see cloud robots on eTrader.
"A trader's own indicator should look like it belongs on the chart. On eTrader, it gets the same sheet, the same legend and the same engine as ours."
— The SGHK Team
Key Takeaways
- Indicators written in eTrader Code are added to the eTrader web terminal chart from the Files menu.
- They use the same settings sheet and legend controls as built-in indicators, and the chart remembers their inputs and style.
- The same engine draws the chart line and runs backtests, so what a trader sees matches what they tested.
- A trader whose own tool lives on your chart has one less reason to keep another platform open.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Traders Change the Colours and Inputs of Their Own Indicators?
Yes. The gear on a custom indicator opens the same settings sheet a built-in one uses, with an Inputs tab for its values and a Style tab for each line's colour, thickness and visibility.
Do Custom Indicators Work on a Phone?
On a phone, a trader can switch an indicator that is already in their library on or off from the chart's indicator list. Adding indicators to a chart and deleting indicator files happens in the eTrader web terminal on a desktop.
Does My Firm Need to Install Each Indicator for Its Traders?
No. Traders add their own indicators to their own charts from the Files menu. eTrader is hosted in the cloud by SGHK and managed by your firm, built to scale across clustered servers as firms grow, so there is nothing for your team to install.
About SGHK
SGHK is a FinTech company that designs and builds its own software for the trading industry: the eTrader trading platform, the Broker CRM and the Prop Firm CRM. Every product is written, hosted and supported in-house, licensed to trading firms, hosted by us in the cloud and managed by each firm, built to scale across clustered servers as our clients grow. Everything is encrypted, and each firm is the only one with access to its data and its clients' data.