Review of the MetaTrader 4 trading terminal
Today it is difficult to imagine how trading would have developed if trading terminals had not appeared.
And in truth, anyone who has read many classics of stock trading may have noticed that traders used to sit with a newspaper in their hands at brokerage companies, trying to carry out one or another currency transaction.
The situation was the same with technical analysis, because of which traders spent days sitting in front of large Whatman papers, calculating formulas for simple indicators and plotting them on pre-drawn charts.
It is worth reading a book about the Ichimoku indicator, in which you would learn that Goichi Hosoda (who invented this indicator) together with his students spent days drawing his indicator to predict the Japanese index.
A trading terminal is software that helps a trader interact with a brokerage company to open transactions and conduct market analysis without leaving home on his computer. Today there are dozens of different trading terminals, some of which brokers provide for free, and some only for a fee.
Today we will look at one of the most popular free trading platforms, Meta Trader 4, which is so actively used in the Forex currency market.
In fact, all brokers personalize the MT4 trading terminal, so after downloading and installing the terminal, you may see a different name, but the functionality and design remain unchanged. This is done so that you can only trade on the accounts of the broker from which the trading platform was downloaded, that is, a kind of license agreement between the developer and the broker so that the license is used only for its intended purpose.
Technical aspects of MetaTrader 4
The platform installation process will take literally a couple of minutes, because it is no different from installing a regular game or program.
After you launch the program, you will have the opportunity to open a real or demo account. Decide for yourself which one you need at this stage, but a demo account will allow you to learn trading without any costs. So let's move on to the functionality of MT4. After launching Meta Trader 4, you can see the chart, the Market Watch panel, the Navigator panel, the Term panel, as well as the toolbar that are located at the top.
Let's start with the Graph. To begin with, you have three chart forms available to you, namely Candlestick, Bars, Lines. If you turn on a candlestick chart, the price will be displayed in the form of Japanese candlesticks, if Bars, then in the form of bars, and if a Line, then the price will be displayed in the form of a regular line. You can change the chart type in the toolbar by clicking on the icon of a specific type. We look at the picture for an example:
You can also switch the timeframe. A timeframe is a period of time during which one candle or bar is drawn. In the MT4 trading terminal, you have access to a minute, five-minute, fifteen-minute, hourly, four-hour, daily, weekly, monthly chart.
It is up to you to decide which timeframe to trade on, since it depends on the trading strategy that you will use in the future. You can also zoom in and out of the graph by clicking on the magnifying glass, as well as change the image and background by entering the graph properties.
The Market Watch panel provides you with information on the currency pairs you can trade. Different brokers give us a different set of currency pairs, which may depend on the type of account or your deposit.
However, major currency pairs are present in any type of account or instrument. In order for the currency pair you need for trading to be displayed on the chart, simply drag it there. You can also open the chart by calling up the menu by right-clicking and clicking on the “Chart Window” line. On the main chart, you can combine several currency pairs, reducing their size.
In the “Navigator” panel you can find such additional tools as “Indicators”, “Expert Advisors”, “Scripts”. The developers have tried to expand the range of tools for market analysis as much as possible, so by default thirty different technical indicators are available to you, with which you can build your own trading strategy.
The indicators section is divided by their type and purpose: trend indicators, oscillators, volumes, Bill Williams. You also have the opportunity to install your own and custom indicators that have been developed by hundreds of traders. By the way, you can download indicators and strategies on our website in the appropriate sections.
Having studied the programming language, you have the opportunity to write your own indicator, as well as automate your own trading strategy by embedding its algorithm in a Forex advisor, which will trade automatically without your intervention!
In addition to indicators, in the MetaTrader 4 terminal you can use various graphical elements such as trend lines, channels, Gann instruments, Fibonacci instruments, graphical elements (triangles, squares) as well as icons. To do this, go to the insert tab and select the tool that you need:
In the “Terminal” panel you can see a list of open transactions, modify them, and also close them. You can also see the history of transactions, assets, view news or set up various signals.
If we consider the full functionality and capabilities of the MT4 trading terminal, it would take at least a dozen articles, so we tried to talk about it in general terms. In order to learn more about its capabilities, I advise you to read the standard instructions for MetaTrader 4, you will find it at http://time-forex.com/knigi/instruksyy-metatrader-4 From my experience I can say that MT4 is one of advanced trading platforms that allow you to unlock the full potential of a trader. Thanks for your attention, good luck!