MetaTrader Global

The current price shown on an MT4 chart is the bid price. When looking at a price bar or candle, you must add the spread to the high bid price to know what the high ask price would have been, or add the spread to the low bid price to know what the low ask [...]

You receive the “Trade context is busy” message when you try to process two or more orders at the same time. If you have placed a trade and do not wait until it processes completely and then try to place the same trade or a different trade, the commands go into a loop and you [...]

Hot keys (accelerating keys) are keys and their combination’s that allow you to execute various commands fast and without the use of menus or toolbars. Here is a lit of some very useful hot keys for the MT4 platform:

Left Arrow — chart scrolling to the left;
Right Arrow — chart scrolling to the right;
Up Arrow — [...]

Templates can also be created for charts opened from the Strategy Tester and for charts opened independently.
To create a default template for charts opened from the Strategy Tester, you will need to save a template as “tester.tpl”.

For offline charts, the default template must be “offline.tpl”.

If the “offline.tpl” template is not found when an offline chart [...]

Use F12 to move through a chart bar by bar.
This function can be very useful when you develop and test your own trading strategies. Simply open a chart at the very beginning of the history (press Home) and move through it bar by bar.
Shift+F12 will move through the chart backwards.

Source: http://articles.mql4.com/189

By using Chart Templates the chart background, bars colors, indicators and objects can be saved and used on other charts.
To do this, setup any chart as you wish: set colors, superpose objects, attach indicators, etc. Then select the “Charts -> Template -> Save Template…” menu and save the obtained template as default.tpl

If you have several trading accounts, you are able to create a special profile for each account.
When you switch between accounts, the profiles will be opened automatically.
To create a profile, you must save it under the name which is exactly the same as the account number.

Source: http://articles.mql4.com/189

If you accidentally close a chart it can be reopened with all its settings using “File -> Open Deleted”.

Source: http://articles.mql4.com/189

To modify a working order or create a new Stop Loss and/or Take Profit order, double-click on one of these fields in the order line.

When the order window appears, enter the necessary values.

Source: http://articles.mql4.com/189

Press F10 to open the Popup prices window.
To enable the popup window to be “Always on the Top” right mouse click in the popup window. This will enable you quotes while working with other applications.

You can also select “Properties…” in the right click menu of the popup prices window, which will allow you to [...]

You can check the price range and the number of bars between two points using the ruler.
To do so, select the “Crosshair” object, click with the left mouse button on the first point in the chart and drag the cursor to the second point.

The first number (23) is the count of bars, the second number [...]

To print a chart, Press Ctrl+P.
By default the charts are printed in black and white, but they can also be printed in color. Just check the “Color print” field in the “Charts” tab of the “Tools -> Options” menu.

Source: http://articles.mql4.com/189

MetaTrader Expert Advisors file should have the file extension of .ex4 (compiled code) or .mq4 (sourse code). First it is necessary to copy this file to the folder Experts of the MetaTrader working directory (usually C:\Program Files\MetaTrader Broker Name or MetaTrader).

The second step is to restart MetaTrader. After the restart the expert should be added to the list of [...]

Let’s look at how to optimize an expert advisor. In the example below we will look to optimize the size of stop loss and take profit.
Expert Optimization Steps
1. Open the Strategy Tester window by pressing Ctrl+R.

2. In the Strategy Tester window, select Expert Properties
3. Select the  Optimized parameters ( in our example stop-loss and stop-profit)

4. Enter the initial values of the [...]

In this article I would like to pay special attention to the program files folder of MetaTrader 4 client terminal. This is connected with the fact that already during the first meeting of the terminal and during all the other time of the serious work with it we often face the necessity to refer to [...]

You can create several sets of symbols and switch between them.
This can be very useful if you work with different groups of symbols (currency pairs, futures, etc.). This allows you to hide all “excessive” symbols and save your favourite symbols.

If news is disabled your internet traffic will be reduced.
To disable news simply open the “Tools -> Options” menu and un-tick the “Enable news” field in the “Server” tab.

Your internet traffic can be reduced if the unused symbols are hidden.
You are able to hide symbols several ways:
1.  Right mouse click in the “Market Watch” window then select ”Hide All”.

2. Select the symbol using the left mouse button then press Delete.

3. Right mouse click in the “Market Watch” window and select the “Symbols” command then hide/show symbols in the window that [...]

Frequently used indicators, scripts, experts and accounts can be added to the “Favorites” group to enable faster access.
To add indicators, scripts, experts or accounts, click with the right mouse button on the name of the indicator, script, expert or account and select ”Add to favorites”.

The listed items will be then available in the “Favorites” tab of the “Navigator” window.

Double left click with your mouse button on the “Terminal” window title bar to minimize it to the bar of the current account status.
This is a quick and easy way to add some additional space for the charts.
To restore, double-click in the minimized window or select the “Restore” command in the context menu.