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Forex Videos

Beginners – Analysis Feature of MT4 Helps You Fund A Trading Strategy!


Beginners: analysis feature of MT4 to help find a trading strategy

Thank you for joining this forex academy educational video. 

In this session, we will be looking at an analysis feature of the MT4 platform, which helps traders to find a winning trading strategy.

The Metatrader mt4 platform is one of the widest the most available trading platforms on earth.  It is fully customisable….

And there are a host of technical analysis tools available in the Navigator section, which are freely available from most brokers, and which can be added to, either freely found ones on the internet or paid tools, which can be mostly found on the mql5 website.

On this one-hour chart of the US dollar CAD pair, we have selected three widely used and popular technical analysis tools from the navigator section, which are Bollinger bands, moving average convergence divergence commonly known as the MACD, and the stochastic oscillator indicator.

 Although as a new trader, we must consider many factors when trading, such as fundamental analysis, the time of day while trading, whether or not economic data is due to be released, whether or not political or policymaker decisions, which might affect the particular currency pair we are interested in, are about to make an announcement, which could affect our trade, without doubt, the most critical aspect to trading, and which has the most influence on the movement of a currency exchange rate, is technical analysis.  Technical analysis often overrides fundamental analysis and even economic data releases.

While we cannot be in control, as traders, of fundamental reasons for why a particular currency pair is moving in any particular direction, and nor can we control political events, we can become masters of technical analysis, and where we can study our charts and seek out regular and consistent screen trading patterns which can stack the odds in our favour with regard to consistent winning trades, and with regard to knowing where to place tight stop losses to maintain the health of our account balance.

Now chart patterns have a habit of reoccurring, and technical analysis traders know this.  Therefore, as new traders, we must find regular and consistent winning setups, and this takes a lot of time as a new trader, and this requires a lot of patience and a whole lot of studying.

Only when we have found regular setups, which consistently work, can we then build a successful trading methodology, which should be adhered to.

Because these chart patterns are always changing, we can take advantage of the drawing tools such as the ‘’draw text label’’ as highlighted, and where we can make notes on the chart, and because of the flexibility of the MetaTrader platform…..

 

If we right-click on the chart, we have the option to save the chart as a picture for further analysis at a later time.  

As we see here, to save the chart as a picture, we can set the desired parameters, including the size, and then click ok….

You will then be asked where to save it on your computer, select your destination folder, and save it.

This saves an awful lot of time and alleviates the need to scroll back through hours and hours of charts just to find the setup which you may have been interested in. 

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Forex Videos

Beginners How to save a profile in Metatrader MT4!


Beginners: How to save a profile in Metatrader MT4

Thank you for joining this forex academy educational video.

In this session, we will show you how to save a profile in the Metatrader MT4 platform.

The MetaTrader mt4 platform is one of the most widely used technical analysis platforms in the world.  Some traders use it for technical analysis only, and will trade on a different type of platform. And some prefer to use it for both analysis and direct trading.

It is used the world over and is extremely reliable and robust.  The platform comes with the widest range of technical analysis tools than any other platform available, and most brokers will offer the platform free of charge. The reason it is so widely used is because of its ease of customization and the huge range of technical analysis tools available both free of charge and to purchase on the MQL5 market place. 

This is a 1-hour chart of the US dollar to the Canadian dollar, and the technical chart setup is

……called the Williams, and it is a custom setup, which is free with the platform download by most brokers.

Let’s say we have an interest in the Canadian dollar, and we want to see what the general directional bias is for the currency, and where here we can see that the Canadian dollar is currently losing ground against the US dollar…..

And here where we have added a couple of other Canadian dollar cross currencies pairs, including the CAD / Swiss and CAD / JPY on 1-hour charts, and we can tell that the general bias is for a weaker Canadian dollar across all three currency pairs.

The cool thing about the MetaTrader platform is that we can save this as a profile and come back to it later if we want to trade another currency pair.

First, we click on the profiles tab at the top of the platform.

 Then highlight the save profile tab and click on it.

 And then enter a new profile name. Here we have called it the Canadian dollar analysis.

 And finally, click on the ok tab, and the profile will be saved.

 

 

Finally, to find all of your profiles, simply highlight the profiles tab at the top of the MetaTrader platform, and then scroll down to find the one you want. Here at the bottom, as highlighted,  is the Canadian dollar analysis profile, which we have just saved. 

You can see a whole host of similar profiles that we have already saved, including all of the major currency pairs, and where it is very simple and quick to move in and out various saved profiles to maximize opportunities of finding trading opportunities quickly, rather than building profiles each time you have an interest in a particular currency pair.

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Forex Videos

FOREX MT4 (meta trader 4) saving Templates!


Beginners – How to save a screen template in Metatrader 4


Thank you for joining this Forex Academy educational video.

 

The Metatrader MT4 platform is one of the most widely used platforms in the world and is fully customisable. 

A great feature that is incredibly time-saving is the ability to save screen templates, which can quickly be added to different asset pairs. This extremely versatile platform comes with its own templates, but most people prefer to adjust them to their own preferences, and this quick tutorial will show you how to do that on a step-by-step basis. 

Here is a standard MT4 1 hour screen chart for the GBPUSD pair.

Firstly, you will need to open your Navigator section to find a wealth of indicators. This can be accessed by pressing Ctrl+ N on your keyboard. 

Then simply drag the indicators you prefer onto your chart, and adjust the parameters and click OK, 

Such as here for the Stochastic, which will then populate your chart. 

By right-clicking on the chart, 

The chart properties will open, and can be able to tweak the parameters to suit. 

Such as the colour of the background or the colours of the bars or candlesticks.

When you have finished building your chart, you can save the changes as a template, in which you will need to right-click on your chart, hover over the Template tab, select save the template, when the second box pops up,

Then give your template a name, and save it. 

The next time you want to use the template for another pair, just open a new chart, such as the EURUSD pair as shown here, and right-click, highlight Template, then click on load template from the pop-up box, 

 

Then simply highlight your saved template and press Open.

And the new chart will automatically be updated with your saved template, thus saving you time.

The templates file is located on your computer by clicking on the File tab on the top left of the platform, then Open data folder.

And you will find it in the templates file folder, as highlighted here.

 

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Forex Trading Platforms

MT4 Vs. MT5 – Which One Should I Use?

Forex traders can choose the trading platform they want to use. However, this choice is interrelated with the choice of the Forex Broker, as not all types of trading platforms are offered by all brokers. In addition, some brokers do not have real compatibility with certain Forex trading platforms, but giving access to them via a bridge, which is a way a software connects a Forex broker trading system to the platform. This may work satisfactorily, but if the bridge is malfunctioning or slow it may adversely affect the implementation and management of trades.

The trading platform MetaTrader 4 is well known and can definitely be said to set the industry standard. I have never seen a Forex broker who does not offer to trade directly through the platform or through an internal bridge to the platform, although this may be at the cost of a slightly higher spread and/or commissions. The MT5 trading platform is something less common, although it is produced by the same

Essentially, MT5 was designed to be able to operate in markets other than Forex, such as the stock or commodity market, basically because it is more able to connect to a centralized trading exchange. Forex is a completely decentralized market, with a number of major players providing liquidity to this huge market at slightly different prices, uncoordinated. Shares and commodities, the latter is traded largely as a futures contract (in fact, several contracts with different maturity dates), it should usually be negotiated through a centralized process before the property can change hands with full legal effect. At the time of the development and publication of MT5, it can be assumed that Metaquotes foresaw a boom in trading in equities and retail commodities, and designed the software to suit that market.

The other important factor of the differential design was the compliance with the “no cover rule” of the U.S., which states that clients of Forex brokers in the U.S. must negotiate on a F.I.F.O. (first-in, first-out) basis. This means that if, for example, an operator is going to buy 1 batch of EUR/USD, and then buys an additional batch of EUR/USD, the first transaction must be closed before the second can be closed. While Metatrader 4 records each transaction individually and allows the management of each individual position separately, Metatrader 5 automatically adds all positions. Therefore, only the Metatrader 4 can deal with coverage: Metatrader 5 does not.

This is fine for operators in the U.S., as they are legally prohibited from coverage in any case, but in almost all the world, many operators find the difficulty of not being able to carry out coverage operations a very annoying and unnecessary handicap. It is probably the main reason why many traders have become annoyed by being “pushed” to use Metatrader 5 instead of Metatrader 4 by their brokers and possibly by Metaquotes as well. So, to sum up, MT5 was developed to attract US markets. and to meet the needs of this market better than MT4 could. This is the story of MT4 vs. MT5.

What are the differences between MT4 and MT5 Forex platforms? The two main differences have already been covered, but there are others worth mentioning within any comparison between MT4 and MT5.

MT5 uses a programming type called MQL5 compared to the MQL4 used by MT4. The best thing about MQL5 is that it allows programming “black box” which, in a nutshell, means it is easier to program and therefore, logically will be a better framework for users and developers of trade robots and other expert advisors. However, Metaquotes expanded this capability in MQL4 in 2014, so it is no longer a difference between platforms, although there is a likelihood that if the language is updated at some point in the future, Metaquotes will not extend any updates in MQL4 as well as MQL5

It should be noted that there is no retroactive compatibility. Programs written for Metatrader 4 cannot run on Metatrader 5. This can be a serious inconvenience for traders who wish to “upgrade”, and is a key reason why such a change should not be seen as an update.

It is true that the Metatrader 5 retains two key advantages related to programming over the Metatrader 4. First, its backtesting functions, where you can test the scheduled trading strategies, run at a much faster rate, which is a feature that can save you a lot of time if you are the type of trader that needs to run a large number of backtests. It also allows for the simultaneous testing of multicurrency peer retrospectives. Overall, this can speed up back-testing procedures immeasurably.

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Forex Trading Platforms

New Trader’s Guide to MetaTrader4

Many traders out there will be considering MetaTrader 4 as the go-to trading platform, one of the most reliable, flexible, and well-supported trading platforms available. If you have traded with a number of different brokers, you would have surely come across one supporting this platform. The platforms offered by brokers are often customized by the MT4 creator Metaquotes which is known as a white-label platform, there is a further reversion known as MetaTrader 5, but MT4 still remains the powerhouse within the retail trading market. MT4 was created by MetaQuotes and was released back in 2005, it is still going as strong as ever.

MetaTrader 4 was created to be intuitive and easy to use, once you have loaded up the platform you are easily able to create a new demo account within the MEtaQuotes server, or you are able to login to an existing account that you have with a broker, if you have downloaded an adapted version for a broker, you will only be able to log into accounts for that broker, and not another one. The demo account, should you decide to open one up will allow you to use fake money in order to test out the markets, a lot of the trading conditions will try to mimic those of a real account and they often have similar settings such as leverage to live accounts, it is a perfect way to test out the servers but also new strategies without having to risk things. It should be noted that the demo accounts on MT4, do not have things like slippage or commissions built into them.

So once the platform has fully loaded, you will be presented with the default page, this is made up of a few different elements. Like many programs, there is the menu bar at the top with things like File, View, Help, and other options being available. In the centre of the screen, you will see a chart, at the bottom, there are a number of different tabs including Trade, Exposure, Account History, News, Alerts, etc. We will have a look at those later. To the right of the platform, there will be two additional boxes, one title Market Watch and the other titles Navigator. It should be noted that you can move these windows around individually to have them positioned wherever you would prefer them to be, one of the many customisation options available from MT4.

Market Watch

We will start by looking at the market watch as this is the simplest of the section, the market watch simply shows you all of the available assets that are available to trade from your broker. If you right-click on a symbol you are able to hide it, you can also choose to “Show All ”, this will then display every asset available, most people will have it show all. Right-clicking also allows you to order the pairs in a different order or to open up a chart for that currency pair. If you decide to double click on a currency pair it will bring up the Order window.

Order Window

The order window is where you will be placing your orders. It can be opened up by double-clicking a pair in the Market Watch window or right-clicking anywhere in the trade window at the bottom of the screen. Once it has opened, you can select the pair that you wish to trade at the top, if you opened it from the market watch window then it will already have the pair you clicked on selected. You can select the volume of the trade, the stop loss level, and the take profit level. You are also able to add in any comments that you may want to attach to the trade.

You can also select the type of order execution that you wish to use, Market Execution will execute the trade as soon as you click on buy or sell. If you select Pending Order it will bring up an additional menu, here you can select a Buy Limit, Sell Limit, Buy Stop or Sell Stop. You can put in the price and then hit the place button. You are also required to add an expiration date/time to the order where it will be removed when that time is met.

Navigator

This is a simple box that allows you to navigate through the various accounts that you have added, as well as any indicators, Expert Advisors, or Scripts. There is not a lot that you are able to do with them, you can simply drag any indicators, EAs, or scripts onto the charts and they will automatically activate. If you have added anything to your data folder, be sure to right-click anywhere within the navigator and then hit refresh, this will then cause it to appear in the list.

Data Folder

Something that a lot of people struggle to find is the Data Folder, this is where you will be placing any new Scripts, Indicators, or Expert Advisors that you wish to use so that they appear in the navigator window. In order to access it, simply go up to File on the main window and then Open Data Folder. Within this folder, click on MQL4, there will then be a number of different folders, simply drop your file into the appropriate one, so EAs into Experts, Indicators into Indicators, and so forth.

Charts

The charts are of course the thing that you will be looking at the most when using the platform. It takes up the largest part of the screen and when first loading up will simply look like a load of lines on a black grid. At the top of the screen within the toolbar, you are able to switch between bar charts (default), candlestick charts, and line charts, the majority of people prefer using candlestick charts, but it is up to you. You are also able to use that same toolbar to zoom in and out or to change the timeframe of the chart, the available time frames with MT4 are M1, M5, M15, M30, H1, H4, D1, W1, and MN. Right-clicking on the chart enables you to toggle the grid as well as volume levels, you can also add indicators, trade from it, and save or load templates for the chart. If you decide to make the charts full screen, then tabs will appear at the bottom of the chart for each asset chart that is opened for ease of navigation.

Bottom Tabs

The bottom of the platform has a number of different tabs, they are all pretty much self-explanatory but we will briefly go through them the first is the Trade tab, this is simply where it shows all of your current trades, you can order them in regards to their order number, time opened, type, size, symbols, stop losses, take profits, commission, swaps and current profits. At the bottom, there is also an overview of your account stats and it will show you the account balance, current equity, margin, free margin, and margin level. This makes it easier to get a very quick overview of the state of the account.

The next tab is Exposure, this will show you the currencies that you are currently buying or selling, the majority of people will never use this tab, but it can be relevant when trying to maintain margins.

The account history tab should be self-explanatory, it simply shows you the history of the trades that you have made within the account, you can get a lot of information from them and can reorder them in any way that you wish.

The news section is also very straight forward, it will be letting you know any upcoming news events., It is often taken from a couple of different websites including MQL5, and will often take information from the Economic Calendar that can be found on the MQL5 website. 

The next two sections are Alerts and Mailbox, the alerts section will show you any alerts that you may have set up and when they have triggered, the Mailbox is where you will receive messages from both the platform itself and your own broker, these are often in relation to changes of trading times when there are bank holidays and things like that. Different brokers send out messages for different things, so it will be different for each one.

The Articles section simply lists articles that are available to read on the MQL5 website, the code base section allows you to download codebases for a number of different indicators and expert advisors, the Expert and Journal tabs offer different bits of information surrounding your account and any EAs that you are using, these sections can often be used to help debug any issues that may have occurred.

Market and Signals

The other two tabs on the bottom section are the Market and Siglan sections. These are where you can purchase, rent, or try out various expert advisors, indicators, and signals. The market section allows you to browse through thousands of different bits of software that you can use to enhance your trading from automated trading to assistance in the analysis. Many of them cost money to use, clicking on them will bring up an overview of what they do and how they can be used.

The signal section does what it suggests, it allows you to view and browse the various signals that other MT4 users are providing, this is where you will be copying the trades that the others are making, the signals section gives you a basic overview as well as an insight into the current performance of the signals. 

Automated Trading

With the help of Expert Advisors, MT4 makes it very easy to achieve automated trading, within the options menu, there is a tab titled Expert Advisors, within this menu you are able to activate automated trading, as well as a few other options. Once you have an expert advisor setup onto the charts, you can activate it either through this menu, or a conveniently placed AutoTrading button found at the centre of the toolbar at the top of the platform.

Push Notifications

Something that a lot of people miss about the MT4 platform is the ability to set up push notifications for your phone, these will activate whenever you open or close a trade, as well as things like deposits. You will need to download the MT4 app for Android or iOS and then input the MetaQuotes ID from the app into the Notifications section of the Options menu within the desktop version. You can then toggle notifications on and off from this same menu.

Options Menu

We won’t go over this in detail as it is all very self-explanatory, we have already touched on the Experts Advisor and Notification sections, the other ones available are the Server where you can alter your passwords and account settings, Charts, Objects, Trade options, Community, Signals, Events, Email, and FTP options. Plenty of ways to configure the platform to better suit your needs.

Expert Advisors and Indicators

We briefly mentioned this above, but one of the things that brings a lot of people to MetaTrader 4 is the sheer amount of expert advisors and indicators that are available, in fact, there are thousands of them available on the MQL5 marketplace and thousands more available elsewhere. The Expert Advisors allow for automated trading while the indicators can add a lot of functionality and information to the charts, things like Bollinger Bands and Fibonacci levels can easily be added to the charts and they update automatically, meaning you do not need to do any of the work yourself. If you are keen on using MT4, then you will certainly find indicators and expert advisors that allow you to do whatever it is that you need to do.

Mobile and Web Versions

We have looked over the desktop version which is, of course, the most popular version of the platform, it is worth noting that there is also a mobile version for Android and iOS as well as a WebTrader which can be used within your internet browser. The mobile version allows you to trade on the move, it offers a lot of the same functionality but without a lot of the bells and whistles, it allows you to check charts, make trades, unfortunately, it does not have the huge amount of EAs or Indicators available to it. The Web version allows you to trade from an internet browser, it is a very stripped-down version of the platform, good for quickly getting on to place a trade that you want, but it is not really sustainable as an independent platform as it is not compatible with the EAs and indicators that the desktop version is, it is nice to have, but certainly not a necessity.

Summary

MetaTrader 4 is one of the most versatile trading platforms around, it makes things incredibly simple to use, but also given enough features that can allow you to create extremely complex trading setups. With access to thousands of EAs and indicators, it can be extremely easy to get things exactly how you want it to function. It is easy to navigate, customisable, and very well supported by MetaQuotes. As it has been out for so long, there are very few bugs still included if any at all. 

If you are looking for an easy to use yet versatile trading platform, then you can’t go wrong with MetaTrader 4 from MetaQuotes.

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Forex Trading Platforms

What is MetaTrader 4?

MetaTrader 4, also known as MT4 for short, is one of the world’s leading and most popular electronic trading platforms. It was developed by MetaQuotes Software and first released to the public in 2005. The software is now licensed out to a large number of foreign exchange brokers who then, in turn, provide the software to their clients. The client that the user uses is a windows-based application that initially gained popularity due to its ability to allow users to create and write their own trading scripts and robots in order to automatically trade for them. MetaTrader 4 comes in various forms such as a desktop download, mobile application, or mobile application.

How to download MetaTrader 4

The MetaTrader 4 website offers the base and generic versions of MetaTrader 4 ready to download, this version is great to download if you are looking to simply try out the platform as it does not require any broker accounts and as a way to try out the expert advisor creation and scripting tools that it provides.

Many brokers have prevented their accounts from being accessed from the generic version of MetaTrader4, they have now created their own branded versions of MetaTrader 4, so if you are using EagleFX, you will need to use the EagleFX MetaTrader 4 trading platform, if you are using IC Markets, then you will need to use the one branded from IC Markets. These platforms are exclusive to the broker offering it, so you won’t be able to use an EagleFX account on the IC Markets branded MetaTrader 4 client and vice versa.

Whichever broker that you are using, there will be an option to download their platform, most likely from within the client area, but some brokers also offer it directly from the homepage or trading platform pages.

How to install MetaTrader 4 on Windows

MetaTrader 4 was designed as a windows based application which makes it fairly straight forward to install, the first thing you will need to do is download the installation file as outlined in the section above,m once this has been done we are ready to install the software.

Simply run the .exe file and the installation wizard should startup. The wizard is self-explanatory, so simply follow the steps that it presents, select the installation location, any additional software that is offered (some brokers add in further options with their installation files). Once the installation is done, just double click the shortcut on your desktop or run the terminal.exe file and the MetaTrader 4 platform should open up.

How to install MetaTrader 4 on a Mac?

It can be a little more complicated to install MetaTrader 4 onto a MAC computer, the complexity needed will depend on the broker that you are using as some offer additional software while others do not.

Hopefully, your broker will be one of the ones that offer a direct MAC compatible download, if this is the case then it is as simple as downloading the application and running through the installation process, just like with a windows installation. If however it does not, it can be a little more complicated to get installed.

In order to get it installed correctly, you will need to download some additional software that will let you install it and run windows programs. Initially you will need to download and install a program called “Wine”, this is a free bit of software that allows Unix-based systems to run applications that were developed for Windows systems, there is a version specifically for the Mac OS. Once downloaded, you will then also need to download a program called “PlayOnMac”, download the software, and then run through the installation, following the prompts and downloading any necessary additional software (through the installation process).

Once everything has been installed, make sure that the latest version of Wine is installed, this can be updated through its menu system. You can then download the MetaTrader 4 Windows installation file, running this file will automatically open it with PlayOnMac, follow the onscreen prompts, and once finished, you should be able to launch MetaTrader 4 from within the PlayOnMac interface, or from a created a shortcut on the Mac desktop.

How to install MetaTrader 4 on a Linux system

If you are running a Linus based system, then you will have a few additional hoops to jump through before you can start using MetaTrader 4, just like we did on the Mac OS installations. This little guide will be based on the popular Ubuntu version of the Linus operating systems.

We will start out the same way as with the Mac installation, you will first need to download an application called “Wine”, this application makes it possible to run Windows applications on a Unix-based operating system. Wine is already included within the Ubuntu system, so in order to get it installed you will need to execute a single command line within the terminal, this command line is:

sudo apt-get install wine-stable

If your Ubuntu version did not have the repository available, then you can obtain it by running the following commands one by one:

wget -nc https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/Release.key
sudo apt-key add Release.key
sudo apt-add-repository https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/

You will then need to update the software with the following command:

sudo apt-get update

Then finally you will need to install it:

sudo apt-get install –install-recommends winehq-stable

Once this has been completed, you can download the MetaTrader 4 windows installation file, be sure to choose to open it using Wine, the MT4 installation wizard will then start up and you can just follow the prompts available to install to your preferred location and any other settings that may be available. Once it has been installed, simply run the terminal.exe file, Wine will automatically load up the windows based program and you should be good to go.

How to install multiple MetaTrader 4 platforms

If you have accounts with different brokers then this is nice and straight forward, you can simply install the MT4 client from each respective broker, as long as they have their own branded version they will both install without any issues.

If you, however, have multiple accounts with the same broker that you wish to trade at the same time, it can be a little trickier. You can install the first platform following the normal routine, simply follow the onscreen instructions. When you want to install the second platform when the option to change the location of the installation is available, you must use this to install the platform onto a separate folder to the original one, this can simply have a number at the end or name it whatever you like. Once this has completed, you should be able to open up the two platforms separately without any issues.

How to download the MetaTrader 4 Mobile App

The mobile app that is available for MetaTrader 4 is a universal application, unlike the desktop version, it does not matter which broker you are using, you will be able to access your account from the standard application. In order to download it, you will need to load up the app store that is relevant to your device. It is available on both the Android Play Store and the iOS Apple Store.

Simply put in a search for MetaTrader 4 and it should pop up. Click to download and you will be all set to input your broker, server, username, and password.

How to use the MetaTrader 4 WebTrader

The WebTrade is a feature that comes with many brokers that allows you to trade using your MetaTrader 4 account without having to download and install any software or applications. All that you will need is a compatible web browser (any modern browser will work) and your account number and password. If your broker supports it, there should be a link to their version of the WebtTrader somewhere on the site.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Trading Platforms

Overview of MetaTrader 4

MetaTrader 4 which is also known as MT4, is one of the world’s most popular and most used electronic trading platforms that is hosted by a large number of online foreign exchange brokers. The platform contains both a client and a server component, the server component is run by the providing broker which the client version is provided to and run by the customers.

MT4 is a Microsoft Windows-based application that was released back in 2004 by the MetaQuotes Software company and first became popular due to its ability to allow its users to create their own trading scripts, algorithms, and robots in order to automatically trade for them. There is now a more recent product called MetaTrader 5, but the popularity of MetaTrader 4 still continues.

MetaTrader 4 Features

MetaTrader 4 comes with a huge array of different features that should enable it to suit your own style of trading.

Mobile Trading: If you are someone that is always on the move then the mobile solution from MetaQuotes is perfect for you. Downloadable as an application to both Android and iOS devices (iPhone, iPad), the application can be accessed from anywhere in the world. The functionality that is offered by the mobile version of the platform includes interactive quote charts, a full set of trading order types, similar to the desktop version, you are able to monitor the status of your account, track the history of trades, as well as buy and sell instruments in a single click, it also comes with push notifications.

Automated Trading: The MT4 platform offers a host of features that allow you to trade automatically, these are mostly performed by Expert Advisors that use technical indicators to look a the markets and will then enter and exit the markets based on the set parameters. The MetaEditor which is built into the software allows you to design and develop your own trading robots as well as test their compilation and performance.

Web Trading: Don’t want to download the desktop platform or a mobile app? No problem, you can simply use the online WebTrader that is offered by many MetaTrader 4 compatible brokers. You can load it up within your compatible web browser (any modern one will work) and then trade on your live or demo account. There are some limitations such as the number of indicators and you cannot use automated trading with it, but it is a good tool to check your accounts and trades should you be away from your usual setting.

MetaTrader Market: MetaTrader 4 comes with both a built-in and a web-based marketplace full of expert advisors, indicators and signals available to easy purchase and installation. The market currently provides a wide selection of trading applications, over 3,000 trading robots, and 4,000 indicators, both free and paid products, the ability to both purchase or rent the applications, secure purchases, and a wide range of payment options. The applications can be purchased outright or they can be rented for a shorter period of time giving you maximum flexibility.

Trading Signals: The MetaTrader 4 marketplace is full of signals that you can copy, offering an inbuilt marketplace, you can browse the available signals from within the trading platform itself. Take a look at their statistics and then decide whether to follow the signal, there are both free and monthly rental signals available to subscribe to.

Indicators: MetaTrader 4 has been designed to work with many different indicators and there are new ones appearing every single day. The marketplace offers over 4,000 indicators that you can purchase, rent, or download for the platform. Technical indicators that incorporate things like Fibonacci Levels, RSI, Bollinger Bands, Moving Averages and more are available, whatever you are looking for, it should be available to download.

Technical Details

The MetaTrader 4 platform comes with a number of technical components that perform different tasks.

MetaTrader 4 Client Terminal – the client part. Provided free by brokerages for real-time online trading and as Demo (practice trading) accounts. This provides trade operations, charts, and technical analysis in real-time. The internal C-like programming language allows users to program trading strategies, indicators, and signals. 50 basic indicators are included, each of which can be further customized. The software runs on Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista/7. Some users have reported success using Wine on Linux for the client terminal and on Mac using WineBottler

MetaTrader 4 Mobile – controls a trading account via mobile devices such as mobile phones or PDAs. Runs on Windows Pocket PC 2002/Mobile 2003, iOS, and Android
MetaTrader 4 Server – the core of the system, the server part. Designed to handle user requests to perform trade operations, display, and execution of warrants. Also, it sends price quotes and news broadcasts, records, and maintains archives. Works as a service. It does not have a separate interface.

MetaTrader 4 Administrator – is designed to remotely manage the server settings.

MetaTrader 4 Manager – designed to handle trade inquiries and manage customer accounts.

MetaTrader 4 Data Center – a specialized proxy server and can be an intermediary between the server and client terminals. It reduces the price quote sending load on the main server.

Categories
Forex Course

77. Moving Averages – Detailed Summary

Introduction

In the past few course articles, we have learned a lot about Moving Averages, their purpose, and various applications of this trading tool. So we just wanted to summarize everything we have discussed until now related to Moving Averages. This article will act as a quick guide for you to recall and remember the concepts better.

What Is A Moving Average?

A moving average is a tool that is used by the traders to identify the direction of the trend. It smoothens the price fluctuations by eliminating the temporary noise in the market. This will eventually help us in identifying the actual trend of the market. There are two types of moving averages, and both of them have different purposes. They are Simple Moving Average and Exponential Moving Average. There are different athematic calculations behind these averages, and we don’t have to know about them in detail. However, if you are interested in knowing, you can find the formula behind the averages here.

The length plays a significant role in the usage of a Moving Average. Lenght is nothing but the predetermined period of the moving average. Smaller MAs always reacts swiftly to the price movements where are longer MAs respond slowly to the price. For example, a 10-period MA always reacts quickly compared to a 20 or 30 period moving average.

SMA vs. EMA

Both SMA and EMA have their own applications to them. They can also be combined to produce more reliable trading signals. But those are sophisticated strategies that are used by some of the experienced traders. The basic approach is that the SMA should be used to protect yourself from the fake-outs that are produced by the market. We might miss out on the opportunity of being a part of the early trend, but we will be safe.

Contrarily, Exponential Moving Average quickly predicts the trend and help us in being a part of the early trend. However, it carries the risk of not identifying the fake-outs. Hence one must use these MAs depending on the market situations. We have also discussed the ways through which we can identify the market trend and taking trades using moving averages.

Applying the Moving Average Indicator On The Price Charts

With the advent of technology, most of the Forex charting platforms these days provide advanced MA indicators. MT4 has all of the moving average indicators by default. However, if you want to download a customized MT4 indicator, you can download it here. If you are a TradingView user, you can plot different period MAs on the price charts just by accessing the toolbar and choosing the MA indicator. You can change the period setting before plotting the MA on the charts.

Conclusion

Moving Average is one of the most basic technical tools but is sturdy. The usefulness of this indicator is increased when we use different period moving averages on the same chart. Also, this indicator can be combined with various other technical indicators to improve the reliability of our signals. If you have been following our strategy series, you would have seen us combining moving averages with other technical tools to filter out fake trading signals. That’s about the basics of moving averages and their applications. In the upcoming lessons, we will be learning about various indicators and their use cases. So stay tuned! Cheers.