What this indicator does
Clock (Spread).mq5 is a MetaTrader 5 chart indicator that displays a small text label in the corner of the chart showing:
- Countdown timer until the current candle closes (in HH:MM:SS or MM:SS format, depending on timeframe)
- Current spread (Ask − Bid, in points), shown in parentheses next to the timer
It updates every second via a timer ( EventSetTimer(1) ), so the countdown keeps ticking smoothly even when the market is closed or there's no new price tick. It also refreshes on every new tick ( OnCalculate ).
Example display: < 04:32 (12) — meaning 4 minutes 32 seconds left until candle close, spread is 12 points.
The indicator draws nothing on the price chart itself ( indicator_plots 0 ); it just places a text label object ( OBJ_LABEL ) in the corner, and it's built to run safely on many charts at once (it builds a unique object name per chart/symbol/timeframe so instances don't collide).
Inputs
Visual settings:
Input
Default
Description
InpFontName
"Trebuchet MS"
Font used for the label text
InpFontSize
12
Font size
InpFontColor
Aqua
Text color, chosen from a dropdown (Aqua, Navy, Teal, Maroon, Lime, Salmon, White, Yellow)
Positioning settings:
Input
Default
Description
InpXDistance
20
Horizontal offset (pixels) from the top-left corner of the chart
InpYDistance
20
Vertical offset (pixels) from the top-left corner of the chart
InpObjPrefix
"CLK_"
Prefix used to build a unique internal object name, avoiding conflicts when the indicator runs on multiple charts simultaneously