How to Use MetaTrader 5: Complete Platform Guide for Traders

MetaTrader 5 — known universally as MT5 — is the multi-asset successor to the world’s most popular retail trading platform. Built by MetaQuotes Software and released in 2010, MT5 was designed to address the limitations of MT4 while expanding into equities, futures, and options alongside the forex and CFD markets that made its predecessor famous.

If you’re new to MT5, or if you’ve been using it without fully exploring its capabilities, this guide walks you through every aspect of the platform — from installation and account setup through charting, order placement, automated trading, and advanced features that set MT5 apart from its predecessor.

Getting MT5: Download and Installation

Obtaining MT5 From Your Broker

Like MT4, MT5 is distributed by brokers as a pre-configured package with their server details included. Visit your broker’s official website and navigate to the platforms section.

Available on:

• Windows (full-featured desktop application)
• Mac (via the official MetaQuotes wrapper or via Wine)
• iOS (App Store — search “MetaTrader 5”)
• Android (Google Play)
• Web terminal (no download required — browser-based version available through most brokers)

Always download from your broker’s website, not third-party sources, to ensure you’re connecting to their official servers.

Installation and First Login

Run the Windows installer (typically under 100MB). Launch MT5 after installation. On first launch, you’ll see a server selection and login screen.

Enter:

• Server name: Select from the dropdown (your broker’s live or demo server)
• Account number: Your MT5 login ID (provided by your broker)
• Password: Your trading password

Opening a Demo Account

If you want to practise before going live, use File → Open an Account to register a demo account directly within MT5. Demo accounts use virtual funds connected to real market prices — essential for learning the platform and testing strategies without financial risk.

The MT5 Interface: A Complete Orientation

MT5’s interface is more sophisticated than MT4’s, with several additional panels and more detailed information displays.

Menu Bar

The menu structure is similar to MT4 but with expanded options:

• File: Account management, workspace import/export
• View: Show/hide toolbars, windows, and language settings
• Insert: Indicators, graphical objects, analytical tools
• Charts: Chart properties, templates, profiles
• Tools: Options and settings, MetaEditor, global variables
• Window: Arrange open charts
• Help: Documentation and community links

Toolbox (Terminal) Panel

At the bottom of the screen, the Toolbox is the hub for account activity:

• Trade tab: Open positions with real-time profit/loss, swap, and margin information
• History tab: Closed positions with full transaction details
• Exposure tab: Aggregated position by currency or asset
• News tab: Financial news from your broker’s feed
• Calendar tab: Built-in economic calendar — a significant MT5 advantage over MT4
• Alerts tab: Price and indicator alerts
• Mailbox: Internal broker messages
• Journal tab: Complete log of all MT5 events and actions

The built-in economic calendar in MT5’s Toolbox displays upcoming high-impact events directly within the platform. You can see scheduled central bank decisions, employment data, inflation reports, and other market-moving announcements without switching to an external website.

Market Watch

MT5’s Market Watch shows instruments with bid, ask, time, high, and low columns. Right-click for instrument specifications, new order dialogs, or chart access.

A key MT5 feature: you can view tick charts and depth of market (order book) directly from Market Watch for instruments where this data is available.

Navigator Panel

The Navigator displays accounts, indicators, Expert Advisors, scripts, and MQL5 programs. MT5’s Navigator also shows signals — a built-in copy trading feature that allows you to subscribe to and automatically copy trades from successful traders.

Data Window

Click anywhere on a chart to display precise OHLCV (Open, High, Low, Close, Volume) data for that candle in the Data Window, along with current values of all applied indicators. Useful for exact price data and indicator readings at specific historical points.

Charting in MT5: More Power Than MT4

MT5 significantly expands MT4’s charting capabilities.

21 Timeframes

MT5 offers 21 timeframes compared to MT4’s 9:

M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M10, M12, M15, M20, M30 (minute charts) H1, H2, H3, H4, H6, H8, H12 (hourly charts) D1 (daily), W1 (weekly), MN (monthly)

The additional timeframes are genuinely useful. M2, M3, and M6 fill gaps in analysis for traders who need finer granularity than M5 but more context than M1. H2, H3, H6, and H8 are valuable for traders who work between the standard H1 and H4 timeframes.

Chart Types

Beyond MT4’s three chart types, MT5 adds:

• Renko charts
• Range bars
• Point & Figure
• Kagi
• Line Break

These alternative chart types are used by specific trading methodologies and have dedicated followings among certain trader communities.

Synchronised Charts

MT5 allows you to synchronise the scroll position across multiple open charts showing the same instrument on different timeframes. When you scroll on one chart, all synchronised charts scroll to the same point in time — invaluable for multi-timeframe analysis.

Templates and Profiles

As with MT4, templates save individual chart configurations and profiles save entire workspace layouts. MT5 extends this with the ability to share templates through the MQL5 community.

Technical Indicators in MT5: 38 Built-In Tools

MT5 includes 38 built-in indicators — eight more than MT4. All MT4 indicators are present, with additions including:

New in MT5:

• Chaikin Oscillator: Volume-based momentum indicator
• Chaikin Money Flow: Measures buying/selling pressure using volume and price
• Commodity Channel Index (CCI): Already in MT4, but MT5 adds enhanced versions
• Double Exponential Moving Average (DEMA)
• Triple Exponential Moving Average (TEMA)
• Fractal Adaptive Moving Average (FRAMA)
• Variable Index Dynamic Average (VIDYA)
• Kaufman’s Adaptive Moving Average (KAMA)

The adaptive moving averages (FRAMA, VIDYA, KAMA) are particularly notable — they adjust their sensitivity based on market volatility, responding faster during trending conditions and slower during consolidation. This reduces false signals compared to fixed-period moving averages.

Applying and Configuring Indicators

The process is identical to MT4:

1. Insert menu → Indicators → [Category] → [Name]
2. Navigator → Indicators folder → Drag to chart
3. Configure parameters in the settings dialog

Multi-Timeframe Indicator Application

MT5 allows you to apply an indicator on one timeframe while viewing a different timeframe. For example, you can display a daily moving average on an hourly chart — without switching timeframes — by setting the indicator’s “Timeframe” parameter. This multi-timeframe functionality provides context from higher timeframes while allowing precision entry on lower ones.

Core indicator types you’ll use regularly are covered in depth in our guides on moving averages in forex trading, the RSI indicator, and Bollinger Bands in forex.

Drawing Tools: 44 Graphical Objects

MT5 offers 44 graphical objects — nearly double MT4’s 24. The additions include:

New object types:

• Pitchfork (Andrews’ Pitchfork): Trend channel tool based on three pivot points
• Gann Fan: Lines from a pivot at various angles based on Gann theory
• Gann Grid: Grid of Gann angles
• Gann Line: Single Gann angle line
• Cycle Lines: Vertical lines at regular intervals for time cycle analysis
• Additional Fibonacci tools: More Fibonacci-based drawing options

The expanded drawing tools support more sophisticated technical analysis methodologies for traders who apply Elliott Wave theory, Gann analysis, or complex multi-level Fibonacci frameworks.

Order Types in MT5: 6 Pending Orders

MT5 supports 6 pending order types versus MT4’s 4:

Standard orders (same as MT4):

1. Buy Limit: Buy at price below current market
2. Sell Limit: Sell at price above current market
3. Buy Stop: Buy at price above current market
4. Sell Stop: Sell at price below current market

New in MT5: 5. Buy Stop Limit: When price rises to the stop level, a buy limit order is placed at the limit level. Prevents the order from executing at worse than your limit price during fast markets 6. Sell Stop Limit: When price falls to the stop level, a sell limit order is placed at the limit level

The stop limit orders are valuable in volatile market conditions — during major news events or rapid geopolitical developments that can cause sharp price movements. Regular stop orders in such conditions can suffer significant slippage. Stop limit orders prevent paying above your maximum price, though they risk non-execution entirely if the market moves too quickly through both levels.

Understanding how to use these order types effectively connects to broader risk management principles covered in our risk management in forex guide.

Placing an Order in MT5

Three access methods:

1. F9 keyboard shortcut
2. New Order button in the toolbar
3. Right-click chart → Trading → New Order

MT5’s order dialog shows:

• Symbol and current price
• Volume in lots
• Stop Loss and Take Profit (in price or pips)
• Order type selection
• Comment field
• Deviation (maximum slippage tolerance for market orders)
• Fill policy (how unfilled portions of large orders are handled — important for larger accounts)

Depth of Market (DOM)

MT5 provides a Depth of Market panel for instruments where this data is available (typically exchange-traded instruments and some forex pairs from ECN brokers).

The DOM shows the order book — all pending buy and sell orders at different price levels near the current market price. This information reveals:

• Where large buyers and sellers are positioned
• Potential support and resistance based on order clustering
• Market liquidity at different price levels

To open DOM: Market Watch → right-click instrument → Depth of Market

From the DOM panel, you can also place orders directly by clicking bid/ask price levels.

The MT5 Strategy Tester: Professional-Grade Backtesting

MT5’s Strategy Tester is substantially more powerful than MT4’s and is one of the strongest arguments for choosing MT5 as an algorithmic trader.

Accessing the Strategy Tester

Ctrl + R or View → Strategy Tester

Testing Modes

MT5 offers three testing modes:

Every tick: Tests using every price tick, producing the most realistic results. Slowest to compute.

1 minute OHLC: Tests using the open, high, low, and close of each 1-minute candle. Faster than tick testing; good approximation for strategies that don’t execute on individual ticks.

Open prices only: Tests using only the open price of each bar. Fastest; only suitable for strategies that make decisions at candle open.

For strategies that could execute at any point within a candle (most strategies), “Every tick” provides the most accurate results but requires the longest computation time.

Multi-Currency Testing

MT5’s Strategy Tester can test strategies that trade multiple instruments simultaneously — something MT4 cannot do. This is critical for:

• Portfolio strategies: Trading a basket of currency pairs with correlations managed
• Spread strategies: Entering simultaneous positions in related instruments
• Hedging strategies: Automatically managing correlated positions

Optimisation

MT5’s optimisation runs tests across thousands of parameter combinations to find the optimal settings for a strategy. The multi-threaded tester uses all available CPU cores and can be extended to a network of computers for massive computational power.

A critical warning: Over-optimisation (curve fitting) is one of the most common algorithmic trading mistakes. A strategy optimised to perform perfectly on historical data often performs poorly in live trading because it has been tailored to past specific conditions rather than identifying robust patterns. Always validate optimised parameters on out-of-sample data before live deployment.

Viewing Results

The Strategy Tester produces detailed reporting:

• Equity curve: Visual display of account growth over the test period
• Performance statistics: Total return, maximum drawdown, Sharpe ratio, profit factor, expected payoff, and dozens of other metrics
• Trade list: Every simulated trade with entry/exit details
• Graph: Customisable equity curve display

MT5 Signals: Copy Trading Built Into the Platform

MT5 includes a built-in Signals service that allows you to subscribe to and automatically copy trades from successful traders.

How Signals Work

1. Signal providers publish their trading results on the MQL5 community website
2. You review their performance statistics — return, drawdown, number of trades, time active
3. Subscribe to a signal within MT5 (some signals are free; most charge a monthly subscription)
4. MT5 automatically copies all trades from the provider to your account, scaled to your account size

Evaluating Signal Providers

Before subscribing, critically assess:

• Track record length: Minimum 6-12 months of live trading (not demo)
• Maximum drawdown: High returns with very high drawdown indicates excessive risk
• Number of trades: Very few trades can produce misleading statistics
• Trading style: Ensure you understand and are comfortable with how the provider trades (scalping, swing, news trading, etc.)
• Drawdown during adverse periods: Check performance during market turbulence

The signals service is convenient but introduces dependency on another trader’s decisions. Understanding what are trading indicators and developing your own analytical capability remains more valuable long-term.

MT5 Market Watch and Instrument Specifications

MT5’s Market Watch has been enhanced compared to MT4’s.

Viewing Tick Charts and Bid/Ask History

From Market Watch, right-click any instrument and select:

• Tick Chart: Real-time tick-by-tick price movement — valuable for scalpers and execution analysis
• Depth of Market: Order book showing available liquidity at different price levels

The tick chart in MT5 is smoother and more informative than MT4’s equivalent, with volume displayed as tick bars.

Instrument Specifications

Right-click any instrument → Specifications shows all contract parameters:

• Spread (fixed or variable), commission
• Contract size, pip value calculation
• Swap rates (long and short) — important for position traders
• Margin requirements and leverage
• Trading hours and sessions

Always review specifications before trading a new instrument, especially the swap rates — positions held overnight in forex accumulate swap charges that can significantly erode profitability for longer-term positions.

MT5 Account Types and Trade Accounting

MT5 supports two fundamentally different accounting systems:

Hedging Mode

In hedging mode, you can hold multiple positions in the same instrument simultaneously — including opposite directions. Each position has its own entry price, stop loss, and take profit. This is the standard MT4 model and suits traders who run multiple simultaneous strategies on the same instrument or use hedging techniques.

Netting Mode

In netting mode, all positions in the same instrument are consolidated into a single net position. Opening a long position when you have an existing short reduces or closes the short rather than creating a second position. This is the standard model for exchange-traded instruments and suits traders who want a clear single position view.

Most forex/CFD brokers offering MT5 provide the choice between modes when opening an account, or allow you to set the mode in account settings.

Advanced Charting Features in MT5

Anchor Objects

MT5’s drawing objects include anchor functionality — you can anchor drawing objects to specific price levels or candles, and they remain fixed even when you scroll the chart. This is useful for fixed support/resistance levels you want to track over time.

Object Visibility by Timeframe

In MT5, you can set drawing objects (trend lines, horizontal lines, levels) to be visible only on specific timeframes. For example, a daily support level you draw can be set to display only on D1 and H4 charts but not on M15 charts — preventing visual clutter at lower timeframes.

To set this: double-click the object to select it → right-click → Properties → Visibility tab.

Chart Screenshots and Publishing

MT5 allows chart screenshot capture directly from the platform:

• Right-click chart → Save as Picture
• Choose PNG or BMP format
• Specify resolution

Screenshots are useful for recording trade setups, sharing analysis, or maintaining a visual trade journal.

MT5’s Economic Calendar: Using It Effectively

The built-in economic calendar in the MT5 Toolbox is one of the platform’s most practically useful features.

Reading the Calendar

The calendar displays upcoming economic releases with:

• Date and time of the release
• Country flag and country name
• Impact level (low, medium, high — shown by coloured icons)
• Indicator name (e.g., Non-Farm Payrolls, CPI, GDP)
• Previous value (last release)
• Forecast (analyst consensus expectation)
• Actual value (updated in real-time as data is released)

Using the Calendar for Trading

High-impact events (typically marked in red) can cause sharp, rapid price movements. In the minutes before and after major announcements:

• Spreads often widen significantly as liquidity providers pull quotes
• Slippage can be severe on market orders
• Stop losses may execute at considerably worse prices than set

Practical calendar workflow:

1. Check the calendar each morning before your trading session
2. Note any high-impact events scheduled during your trading hours
3. Mark these times on your charts using MT5’s vertical line drawing tool
4. Either avoid trading in the period surrounding high-impact events, or specifically prepare for them if your strategy accounts for news volatility

The best time to trade forex — and equally important, the times to avoid trading — is closely connected to this news-awareness discipline.

MT5 Global Variables

MT5 has a unique feature called Global Variables — a shared memory space accessible by all Expert Advisors and indicators running on the platform simultaneously.

Access via Tools → Global Variables (F3).

This allows:

• EAs running on different charts to communicate and share data
• Persistent storage of strategy state across chart/timeframe changes
• Coordination between multiple EAs in a portfolio system

For example, a trend-identification EA running on the daily chart could write a variable indicating the current trend direction, which a trade execution EA on the hourly chart reads before entering positions. This coordinated architecture is far cleaner than attempting to implement multi-timeframe logic within a single EA.

MT5 for Professional Risk Management

MT5’s position and margin management features support more sophisticated risk management than MT4.

Margin Call and Stop Out Levels

MT5 displays your current margin level (equity ÷ used margin × 100%) in the Trade tab. When this drops to the margin call level (set by your broker, often 100%), you receive a warning. At the stop out level (often 50%), positions are automatically closed starting with the least profitable.

Monitoring margin level is critical when using leverage. Our detailed guide on leverage and margin trading explains how to calculate the appropriate position sizes to keep margin levels safe.

Position Netting Exposure

MT5’s Exposure tab shows your aggregated exposure per currency — invaluable for forex traders who hold multiple pairs that share currency components. If you’re long GBP/USD and long EUR/GBP, you have significant hidden GBP exposure that the individual position view doesn’t clearly show. The Exposure tab makes this transparent.

MT5 VPS: Keeping Your Strategies Running 24/5

For algorithmic traders, ensuring MT5 runs continuously without interruption is critical. The solution is a VPS (Virtual Private Server) — a remote computer that runs MT5 continuously, even when your local machine is off.

MT5’s Built-In VPS Service

MT5 includes a virtual hosting feature: Tools → Virtual Hosting. This connects to MetaQuotes’ own VPS infrastructure. For qualifying accounts (minimum equity requirements vary by broker), some brokers subsidise or provide free VPS access.

Third-Party VPS Options

Specialist forex VPS providers (ForexVPS, BeeksFX, Vultr, etc.) offer more control and potentially lower latency to broker servers. Monthly costs typically range from £15-60 depending on specifications.

For active EAs, choose a VPS geographically close to your broker’s server — lower latency means faster order execution, which matters for time-sensitive strategies.

For algorithmic traders, a VPS (Virtual Private Server) keeps MT5 running continuously — even when your computer is off — ensuring EAs don’t miss trades during overnight sessions or your internet outage.

MT5 has a built-in VPS service through the MetaQuotes infrastructure. Access via Tools → Virtual Hosting. Third-party VPS providers (ForexVPS, BeeksFX, and others) offer alternatives with lower latency to major broker servers.

For forex traders, the market operates 24 hours Monday to Friday. The best time to trade forex — specifically the overlapping sessions between major financial centres — is covered in our dedicated guide.

MQL5 and Automated Trading in MT5

MT5 uses MQL5 — a significantly more powerful programming language than MT4’s MQL4. MQL5 is object-oriented (based on C++) and supports multi-threaded execution.

What You Can Build in MQL5

• Expert Advisors (EAs): Fully automated trading systems
• Custom indicators: Any technical analysis tool beyond the built-in set
• Scripts: Single-execution programs that perform a specific action (bulk order placement, account snapshot, etc.)

The MQL5 Marketplace

Access via the Tools → Market within MT5 or via mql5.com. Contains:

• Thousands of free and commercial indicators
• Ready-made EAs for every trading style
• Scripts and utilities for account management

MetaEditor: MT5’s Built-In IDE

Press F4 to open MetaEditor — the integrated development environment for writing MQL5 code. It includes:

• Syntax highlighting
• Auto-completion
• Debugging tools
• Direct connection to Strategy Tester
• MQL5 reference documentation

MT5 Security and Account Management

Investor Password

Like MT4, MT5 accounts have a trading password and a read-only investor password. Share the investor password — never the trading password — when granting view-only access.

Two-Factor Authentication

Enable 2FA on your broker’s web portal (separate from MT5 login) for an additional security layer.

Account Activity Monitoring

Regularly review the Journal tab in the Toolbox. Any unusual entries — unexpected orders, connection events, or error messages — warrant immediate investigation with your broker.

MT5 for Multi-Asset Trading

One of MT5’s defining advantages is multi-asset capability. If your broker supports it, you can trade:

• Forex pairs — all majors, minors, exotics
• Equity CFDs — individual stocks as CFDs
• Exchange-traded equities — actual stocks on exchanges (not CFDs)
• Futures — commodity, equity, and financial futures
• Options — basic options capability
• Bonds — government and corporate bonds

This means a single MT5 account with a multi-asset broker can serve as your complete trading hub — analysing and executing across asset classes without switching platforms. For traders interested in understanding how equities and other instruments generate returns, our guide on what are shares and how they generate returns provides the foundational knowledge to complement your MT5 multi-asset trading.

Essential MT5 Keyboard Shortcuts

Conclusion

MT5 is a professional-grade trading platform that offers genuine capabilities beyond what MT4 provides — particularly for traders who want multi-asset access, superior backtesting, additional timeframes, and more sophisticated order types.

Learning MT5 is an investment of time that pays dividends throughout your trading career. The platform’s depth means that as your skills develop, you’ll continue finding features that support your evolving needs — from basic chart reading to complex algorithmic strategy development.

As with all trading platforms, MT5 is a tool. The decisions that determine your long-term success — your analytical framework, risk management discipline, and psychological resilience — sit outside the platform. Master both the tool and the principles behind it.

Whether you’re using technical indicators, automated strategies, or copy trading features, ground every decision in proper risk management, always trade with regulated brokers — as covered in our forex regulation guide — and approach the markets with a long-term perspective built on continuous learning and disciplined execution.