What is MetaTrader 4 - MT4

MetaTrader 4, also known as MT4, is an electronic trading platform widely used by speculative online retail forex traders. It was developed by MetaQuotes Software and released in 2005. The software is licensed to forex brokers who make the software available to their clients. The software consists of a client and a server component. The server component is operated by the broker and the client software is made available to the broker's clients, who use it to view live prices and charts, place orders, and manage their accounts.

The Client is a Microsoft Windows-based application that became popular mainly due to the ability of end-users to write their trading scripts and robots that could automate trading. In 2010, MetaQuotes released a successor, MetaTrader 5. However, adoption was slow and as of April 2013, most brokers were still using MT4. Although there is no official version of MetaTrader 4 for Mac OS, some brokers offer their tailor-made MT4 variants for Mac OS. Metatrader 4 has a web and mobile-based platform for traders easy to trade everywhere they are comfortable.

History

Its developer, MetaQuotes Software, had previously released various versions of the MetaTrader platform starting in 2002. MetaTrader 4 was a significantly improved version and was released in 2005.

Between 2007 and 2010, several brokers added the MT4 platform as an optional alternative to their existing trading software due to its popularity with traders and a large number of third-party scripts and advisors.

In October 2009, a significantly recoded MetaTrader 5 entered public beta testing. Subsequently, in September 2010, InstaForex launched the first MT5 live account. In 2013 and 2014, the MQL4 programming language underwent a complete overhaul and finally reached the level of MQL5. Starting with build 600, MQL4 and MQL5 use a unified MetaEditor.

Although MT5 was launched in 2009, according to a September 2019 study, MetaTrader 4 was still the most popular forex trading platform in the world at the time.

Functionality

The client terminal includes a built-in editor and compiler with access to a library of free user-contributed software, articles, and help. Expert Advisors, custom indicators, and scripts. MetaTrader's popularity is largely due to its support for algorithmic trading.

Yahoo! hosts a large group (over 12,000 members) dedicated to developing free, open-source software for MetaTrader.

MT4 is designed to be used as a standalone system with the broker managing your position manually and this is a common setup used by brokers. However, several third-party developers have written software bridges that allow integration with other hedging financial systems. In late 2012 and early 2013, MetaQuotes Software began phasing out third-party plugins for its software, suing and warning developers and brokers.

MetaTrader offers two types of trading orders, pending orders and market orders. Pending orders are only executed when the price reaches a predefined level, while market orders can be executed in one of four modes: Instant execution, order execution, market execution, and Exchange execution. If executed immediately, the order will be executed at the price displayed on the platform. Its advantage is that the order is executed at a known price. However, a good trading opportunity can be missed when volatility is high and the asking price cannot be met. Request execution mode allows a trader to execute a market order in two steps: first, a price quote is requested, then a trader decides whether to buy or sell based on the received price. A trader has several seconds to decide if the price received is worth it. Trade. This mode offers some price knowledge combined with guaranteed execution at that price. The trade-off is reduced execution speed, which can take much longer than other modes. In market execution, orders are executed at the broker's price, even if it differs from the one displayed on the platform. The advantage of this mode is that you can trade without any kind of requotes. However, in the case of volatile price changes, the deviation can be significant. In exchange execution mode, the order is processed by the external execution facility (the exchange). Trades are executed according to the current market depth.