MetaTrader 4 Terminal window – Trade

Written by Miroslav Marinov

Miroslav Marinov

Miroslav Marinov, a financial news editor at TradingPedia, is engaged with observing and reporting on the tendencies in the Foreign Exchange Market, as currently his focus is set on the major currencies of eight developed nations worldwide.

, | Updated: October 30, 2024

The “Trade” tab features information about the current status of the trading account, positions currently active and pending orders, that have been placed. All active positions can be sorted by any field. Here one can see a line of the account balance and the financial result of active positions, accompanied by the list of pending orders. When a pending order is triggered, a new position will be taken and the pending order line will be replaced with the line of the active position.

All trading operations are presented in the form of a table, which has the following fields (from left to right):

– Order – this is a unique number of the trading operation.

– Time – this is the time, when the position has been opened. The time is presented as YYYY.MM.DD HH:MM, or (year.month.day hour:minute).

– Type – this is the type of the trading operation. Several types of trading operations can appear in this field: “Buy” or long position, “Sell” or short position, and pending orders identified as a Sell Stop, Sell Limit, Buy Stop, Buy Limit.

– Size – this field refers to the amount of lots, engaged in the trading operation. The minimum amount of lots to be engaged in operations is specified by the brokerage company, while the maximum amount is limited and depends on the size of the deposit.

– Symbol – this field shows the name of the trading instrument, participating in the trading operation.

– Price – this is the price, at which the position was taken. It should not be mixed up with the current price described below.

– S/L – this field shows the level, at which one placed his/her Stop Loss order. If the order has not been placed, a zero value will be shown in the field. Further details about different orders are presented in the “MetaTrader Orders” section.

– T/P – this field shows the level, at which one placed his/her Take Profit order. If the order has not been placed, a zero value will be shown in the field. Further details about different orders can be found in the “MetaTrader Orders” section.

– Price – this is the current price of the instrument. It should not be mixed up with the price, at which the position has been opened described above.

– Commission – this field shows commissions charged by the brokerage company for performing trading operations.

– Taxes – this field shows taxes charged when performing trading operations.

– Swap – the charging of swaps is presented in this field.

– Profit – the financial result of the transaction is shown in this field, if taking the current price into account. A positive result means that the transaction made a profit, while a negative result means that it registered a loss.

– Comments – comments on trading operations are stored here. A comment can only be written at the opening of a position or at the placing of a pending order. A comment cannot be changed when modifying an order or a position. The brokerage company can also store a comment in regard to a trading operation.

The “Trade” tab allows not only to view the active positions and orders placed, but also to manage trading activities. One is able to do the following: to open a new position, to place, modify or delete a pending order, to close a position. In order to do so, one can use the following commands from the context menu:

– New Order – placing a new order. The window, that manages orders, will appear upon execution of this command. A new position can be opened and a pending order can be placed in it. To do that, one needs to specify the following: the trading instrument, the amount of lots, type of order (a market order or a pending order), Stop Loss order and Take Profit order levels.

– Close Order – closing a trade. This command becomes active, only if the context menu has been called at an open position. The window, that manages orders, appears at this command as well. It shows not only “Sell” and “Buy” buttons, but also the “Close#XXXXXXX …” button (where XXXXXXX is the position ticket number). After executing this command, one can close the selected positions along with the hedged ones. Further details about closing of positions are to be found in the “MetaTrader Orders” section.

– Modify or Delete Order – changing the “Stop Loss” and “Take Profit” levels of active positions or changing the pending order price level. In case the Stop Loss and Take Profit levels one specified are in proximity to the current price, the error message will appear, while the levels will not be placed. These values need to be set not so close to the current price, so that one can place them again. Further details about order modification are to be found in the “MetaTrader Orders” section.

– Trailing Stop – placing, modifying, or deleting the “Trailing Stop” level. After selecting the respective level in the menu, one can activate the trailing stop with the specified parameter. The “None” value is used, when one is to disable the order. “Delete All” disables all trailing stops. The “Trailing Stop” command may be absent from the context menu, if the brokerage company has disabled the use of that function.

– Profit – presents the profit or loss as points, as term currency, or as deposit currency. Changes in this parameter are displayed in the “Profit” field. If the parameter of “show profit in the term currency” (quote currency) is selected and one has taken, for example, a position in USD/JPY, the profit will be estimated in Japanese yens.

– Commissions – shows/hides the “Commissions” column, where the commission for any trading operation performed will be shown.

– Taxes – shows/hides the “Taxes” column, which displays the tax for any trading operation performed.

– Comments – shows/hides the “Comment” column, where comments in regard to trading operations are shown. A comment can be written, only if a position is being opened or an order is being placed. A comment cannot be changed when modifying an order or a position. The brokerage company can post a comment in regard to a trading operation.

– Auto Arrange – automatically arranges columns, when changing the size of the window.

– Grid – shows/hides the grid, that separates columns.

One can switch the focus in the “Terminal – Trade” window by using a key combination of Ctrl+F9. After these keys have been pressed, one is able to trade with the keyboard.