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MT4 Terminal Window - Forex MetaTrader 4 Transactions Tabs Panel

The MT4 Platform Terminal Window is mainly used for monitoring your forex account balance, account equity and transaction reports mainly. There are other operations that can be set up on this panel but most of these are not commonly used.

On the online Forex platform MetaTrader 4 the Terminal Window is shown below:

MT4 Terminal Window and Terminal Button View Menu - MetaTrader 4 Platform Terminal Window Tutorial

Terminal Window - MetaTrader 4 Online Forex Trading Platform

The Terminal Window has the Following Sub Menu or Tabs:

  1. Trade
  2. Account History
  3. News
  4. Alerts
  5. Mailbox
  6. Signals
  7. Code Base
  8. Experts
  9. Journal

Let us look at each on its own:

Trade Tab

If you open a Forex on the MT4 platform, the transaction will then be recorded here on this Trade Tab. For Example if you sell The EURUSD, open a sell trade order the following details will be recorded on this Trade Tab panel.

Forex Trading Account Balance on MT4 and Open Forex Trades Details on MT4 Terminal Window - MT4 Forex Terminal Window Explained

Trade Tab - Forex Platform Trading Windows

From the above example we have opened a Sell EURUSD: The transaction details are shown above under the column details marked

Order, Time, Type, Size, Symbol, Price, S/L,T/P, Commission, Swap, Profit

Order, - The transaction number

Time, - The Time

Type, - The Type of order, Sell or Buy

Size, - Size of transaction, 1 Standard Lot

Symbol, - Currency Symbol, EURUSD

Open Price - 1.35185

S/L, - Stop Loss

T/P, - Take Profit

Current Price

Commission, - Commission (no commission charged by this broker)

Swap, - no swap charged as per now, the trade has not stayed overnight

Profit - $ 51 dollars

The most common operation after opening a transaction is to place the Stop Loss and Take Profit, These are abbreviated as S/L and T/P. There is likely no other operation to setup after this only to monitor the trades within the trading platform work-space after setting these two levels, the stop loss will close your order with a minimum loss and the take profit will close your it at a reasonable profit.

To place this S/L and T/P, we shall Right Click anywhere within this Trade Tab, the part shaded grey, the following menu will appear, this is used to make changes to the current order that is open.

This will appear as:

Trade Tab Menu on MT4 Terminal Window - MetaTrader 4 Platform Terminal Window Example Explained

Modify a Forex Order on the MT4 Platform

Broker

The Menu has The following Options:

  1. New Order - Put a new transaction
  2. Close - Can close this transaction at current price
  3. Modify or Delete - Can Modify the S/L and T/P, (order cannot be deleted, delete is for pending orders that are not yet executed)
  4. Trailing Stop - Set a trailing Stop Loss
  5. Profit - View profit as either pips, term currency or deposit currency; depending on which option you favor.
  6. Commission, Taxes, Comments, are additional columns that you can chose to show or hide by ticking/unticking(Checking/Unchecking) them.
  7. Auto Arrange - Arrange Currencies according to alphabet, time of open, most profitable according to sorting by choosing a column of arranging priority, for example "Time" column.
  8. Grid - Show Grid or do Not Show Grid, by Checking/Unchecking this option.

To Set Take Profit and Stop Loss, T/P and S/L we use the third option, "Modify or Delete", after clicking this the following panel will popup:

S/L is placed at 250 points - 25 pips

T/P is placed at 500 points - 50 pips

You can set this two points by selecting 250 and 500 on the part labeled points, the red part marked copy is for Stop Loss and blue part marked copy as is for Take Profit as shown on the screenshot below.

After that press the wide red button marked modify to modify.

Setting Up a Market Order to Buy or Sell a Currency Pair in MT4

Modify a Trading Order on MetaTrader 4

The order will then appear as below, note that the S/L and T/P columns for our trade have now been updated as shown below.

EURUSD Sell Order with Take Profit and Stop Loss Levels on MT4 - Forex Trading Platform MetaTrader 4 Terminal Window

Take Profit and Stop Loss Levels Shown on Meta Trader Platform

MT4 Terminal Window Profit, Loss and Account Balance

S/L and T/P Trading Order Details Updated on the Meta 4 trader Platform Transaction Window

If you were to close the above transaction now, then the transactions will be updated as follows, to reflect that the transaction has been closed and the profit added to your account balance.

Profit Recorded on MT4 Terminal Window for Closed EURUSD Trade - Forex Platform MT4 Terminal Window

Forex Account Balance Updated on the MT4 Platform

Account History

This is used to generate trade reports of trades that have been opened previously and have been closed. This is a record of all previous transactions.

Forex Trading Account History Tab for Recording Closed Forex Trade Orders on MT4 - MT4 Forex Terminal Window Example Explained

Trade Reports Window on MetaTrader 4

On the above example, there are currently no trade records on this transaction history recorded. There needs to be a couple of closed transactions for this record to show some entries. Let us see what happens when we close our open position of EURUSD currency pair.

MT4 Forex Account History Tab - EURUSD Sell Trade Recorded on MT4 - Forex Software MetaTrader 4 Terminal Window - MetaTrader 4 Transactions Tabs Panel

EURUSD Closed Transaction Recorded on MT4 Account History Transaction Tab

From the above example, once our open EURUSD trading order was closed the transaction was then recorded as an entry within the "Account History" of the MetaTrader 4 Platform

MT5 Platform Forex Account History Menu for Generating Detailed Trading Reports on MT5

MT4 Account History Menu

Account History Menu

This menu is shown above and can be accessed by right clicking anywhere within the account history panel. The last Four (commissions, Taxes, comments, Auto Arrange and Grid are used more for formatting purposes but not for trading in general, therefore we shall not look at these as they are self explaining)

The following 6 options are Shown Below:

All History, Last 3 Months, Last Month or Custom Period - all these options can be used to select the time period for which you want to generate the history of transactions.

Save as Report, Save as Detailed Report - This will generate a report of all transactions along with profit and loss calculation, draw-down calculation, profit factor calculation, expected payoff factor of the system you use along with the total number of profitable transactions, losing ones, the average loss per transaction and the average profit per transaction as shown below.

Generating Trading Reports and Detailed Trading Reports on MT4 - MT4 Forex Terminal Window PDF

Generating Trade Reports of Your Forex Account on MT4 Trader Platform

Save as Report

Save as Report History of Trades in MetaTrader Platform Terminal Window

Save as Detailed Report

Save as Detailed Report on MT4 Terminal Window - Forex Trading Platform MT4 Terminal Window

Saving detailed Reports of Trading Transactions History on Meta Trading 4 Platform

Broker

News Tab

This is the third option within the MetaTrader 4 Terminal Window this panel is used to display a list of current news provided as a news feed by your Forex broker. This is shown below:

News Tab Menu and News Feed Menu on MT4 - MT4 Platform Terminal Window PDF - MT4 Transactions Tabs Panel

Forex News Stream on MT4 Online Forex Trading Platform

Alerts Tab

This is used to set an alert for price when it reaches a pre determined level. For example you may be using a Bollinger bands, an indicator that forms an upper boundary and lower boundary and you want to set an alert for price when it gets to any one of these levels.

For example, in our above example we may want to put an alert for at 50 pips below the current price, we shall open the Alerts Tab, and right click to activate the menu below:

Alerts Menu and Alert Tab for Setting Trading Alerts on MT4

How to Set Price Alerts on MT4

On the above panel, select, Create and create one as follows:

MT4 Window for Setting Trading Alerts on MT4 Terminal Window - MetaTrader 4 Transactions Tabs Panel

Setting Price Alerts on MetaTrader 4 Forex Software

Put the sound as the alert action, currency symbol is the EURUSD, set the condition to set is when bid price is less than(Bid<) and put the value for example at 1.34730, select the source of the alert sound as above, (This is a sound file with extension Alert.wav), adjust timeout to 10 seconds and iterations at maximum of 50, then select OK to activate it.

Trade Alert Setup on MetaTrader Alerts Tab - MetaTrader 4 Platform Terminal Window Example Explained

Setting Price Alerts on MT4

The above alert is then set and an alert will sound off once this price of EURUSD goes below this level.

By right clicking on this, the Alert Menu will provide options for modifying it, deleting it or turning it off. You can download the MetaTrader 4 and practice opening this option to see how you can put a new alert or delete the same or modify it.

Mailbox Tab

Mail box is used to view the messages that have been sent to you, to your Online Forex platform as shown below:

MT4 Mailbox for Emails Sent to Trader's Software

Mail Box on MetaTrader 4

Signals Tab

Contains of a list of Forex Signal Providers that traders can subscribe to through their MetaTrader 4 Platform, this is shown below, one can select any signal provider and click subscribe to get the Forex signals.

Signals Tab on MT4 for Accessing MQL5 Trade Signals

MetaTrader 4 Signals Provided From MQL5 Forex Website Directly to the Trading Platform

To learn more about MetaTrader 4 MQL5 Signals, navigate to the MQL5 Forex Trading Signals Page.

CodeBase Tab

CodeBase contains a list or a library of Expert Advisors that one can purchase from through their MT4 platform and then use this Expert Advisors which are automated programs used to trade currencies. These EA Forex Robots are set up Expert Advisors on the traders MT4 platform. To use these Expert Advisors (EAs) one has to activate automated trading option within their platform a topic explained in the next tutorial. The Code Base is shown Below:

Code Base Tab on MT4 for Accessing MQL5 EAs Library - Forex Platform MT4 Terminal Window

MetaTrader 4 Expert Advisors Provided From MQL5 Forex Website Directly to the Trading Platform

To learn more about MetaTrader 4 MQL5 Expert Advisors, navigate to the MQL5 Forex Expert Advisors Page.

Experts Tab

Shows a list of all Expert Advisors that have been installed on the MetaTrader 4 Platform, for Example the image below shows two EA Forex Robots are installed on this platform. This option also shows the trading specifications of each EA, these include trading parameters such as Take Profits, Lot Size, Trailing Stop Levels and all the other custom trading parameters of the EA that has been installed on the Forex platform.

MT4 Experts Tab Showing List of Installed Expert Advisors - MT4 Platform Terminal Window Example Explained

Automated Forex Trading Expert Advisors Installed on MetaTrader 4

Journal Tab

Tracks login activities of the Meta 4 trader and from which computer and the IP address of the computer used to login to the platform.

This is more on the technical stuff and traders do not use this one a lot and therefore we shall not explain it here but you can look at this at your own free time, on your MT4 Platform.

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