Charts and orders, robots too:a terminal many traders use.
A popular electronic trading platform (MT4 and MT5) developed by MetaQuotes Software, widely used by retail forex traders for charting, analysis, and automated trading through Expert Advisors (EAs).
In plain words
MetaTrader is a family of trading platforms made by the software company MetaQuotes; the two versions in use are MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. A platform is the program through which a trader sees prices and charts and sends orders to a broker. MetaTrader can also run Expert Advisors, programs that place orders automatically according to rules.
See it move
MetaTrader and Charts
Why it matters
Many brokers offer MetaTrader, so a trader who learns it meets the same charts, order tickets and tools at different firms. The software is the same everywhere, but the instruments, prices and trading conditions shown in it come from the broker whose account is logged in.
A common mistake
MetaTrader is not itself a broker and does not hold client money. It is software supplied by MetaQuotes; the account, the prices and the execution belong to the broker.
Check yourself
Learn more
- Academy lessonExpert Advisors and how they runWhat an Expert Advisor is, how it runs inside MetaTrader, how automated trading fails in operation (connection loss, requotes, restarts, version changes) and what a VPS is for.
- Academy lessonBacktesting, optimisation and overfittingHow a backtest works, what optimisation does to it, how overfitting shows itself, and what out-of-sample and walk-forward testing are for. Why a good backtest is not a forecast.
Educational information, not investment advice or a recommendation to trade.