MetaTrader 5

The platform is software, and it is the same software wherever it is downloaded from. Everything a trader actually deals against sits behind it on a broker's server: the instrument list, the quotes, the spreads, the commission, the swap rates, the margin requirements, the execution rules and the account itself. Two accounts on the same platform at two firms can therefore differ in every one of those respects while looking identical on screen. It runs on desktop, on mobile and in a browser, with the same account reachable from each.

Its parts are worth naming, because most instructions written for it assume them. Market Watch lists the available symbols and their current quotes. A chart window carries the price series and any indicators applied to it. The Toolbox holds the Trade tab, where balance, equity, margin, free margin and margin level are shown alongside the open positions, and the History tab, where completed deals are recorded. Orders are sent from a ticket that carries the symbol, the volume in lots, the type, and optional stop loss and take profit levels.

The detail that most often catches people out is the account mode. An account is configured on the server as either netting or hedging, and the choice changes what an opposite order does: on a netting account a sell in a symbol already held long reduces or reverses that single position, while on a hedging account it opens a second, separate position in the opposite direction. The mode is a property of the account rather than a setting in the application, so it cannot be changed from the platform. The platform also has its own server time, and every timestamp, daily candle boundary and financing cut off follows that clock rather than the reader's own.