Trading Software Tutorial

After opening a demo practice trade account the next thing a trader needs and requires to do is to learn how to navigate the trading software.

The platform inter-face looks like the example presented below, various components of the platform interface are explained below.

The first thing you'll need to know and learn about is the main navigation menu that's displayed and illustrated below. Just like this website has got a main navigation menu at the top where traders can navigate to various sections of this website, trading software also has got a main navigation menu that traders can use to navigate the MetaTrader 4 software.

The main navigation menu on this platform has the following sub menu items:

File

View

Insert

Charts

Tools

Window

Help

These are the main sub menu items that you will use to navigate this platform. Let us look at each one of them so that as you'll have the basic idea of how to navigate this trade platform.

File Menu

Once you click the 'File' menu the following drop down menu items will be listed and can be used for doing different tasks.

New Chart - New chart button is used to open a new trading chart, for our tutorial using the practice demo account that you opened you may choose to open Group 6 instruments where you'll find all the instruments which are available for trading.

Open Offline - Used to open an offline chart.

Open Deleted - Used to open a chart that had been deleted.

Profiles - Profiles is used to save a work space, this way you as a Stock Index trader can load the same workspace at another time, or you may save 2 work spaces and can choose to switch between these 2 work spaces by loading the particular workspace that you want at any given time.

Close - Used to close-out an open chart

Save As - Used to save a chart

Save As Picture - Used to save chart as a picture

Open Data Folder - Opens data folder which is used to store automated programs that are known as Expert Advisors.

Open an Account - For Opening Practice Demo Accounts

Log in to Account - For Login in to trade account

Login to MQL5.community - Login to MQL5 community where a trader can buy Expert Advisors & also subscribe to signals.

Print Setup, Print Preview & Print - For printing charts.

Exit - For closing platform.

View Menu

The 'View' menu is the next navigation menu after 'File' & it's used to show items on the platform and also on the charts.

On the view menu a stock index trader can do the following tasks:

Languages - a indices trader can use this option to change the trading platform language to another language.

Tool-Bars - tool bars are used to perform and carry out various tasks on the platform, various toolbars are:

1. Standard

2. Charts

3. Line Studies

4. Periodicity

These tool-bars will be expounded at the bottom of this tutorial guide.

Status Bar - this is the bar that shows internet connection and a trader can use this to button to show internet status bar.

Charts Bar - This is the charts navigation bar that's displayed below the chart window & it has got a list of all open charts and traders can navigate to various open charts using this bar.

Symbols - This is used to show all the instruments available for trading based on their grouping, a trader can open this symbols tab and get access to all financial instruments provided within this platform.

Market-Watch - displays a list of all financial instruments available for trading

Data Panel Window - used to show data about a particular object

Navigator - used to display the navigator panel, navigator window illustrates trading accounts the trading accounts whose login info have been saved within the trading platform, this window also shows the indicators list from which a trader can select an indicator & place it on a chart. This window also shows a listing of the available EAs.

Terminal - this window illustrates the trading account balance, account profit & loss summary, free margin & also a statement of all opened and closed trades for a particular account.

Strategy Tester - this is a programming environment used by EA coders to back test the results of their Automated EAs.

Full Screen - used to maximize the trading screen to full screen

Insert Menu

The insert menu has the following options and it's used to place various tools and indicators on the charts.

The insert menu can be used to place trading indicators, line studies, channels, Gann studies, Fibonacci studies, Shapes, arrows and Text labels on trading charts.

Charts Menu

The charts menu is displayed below:

The charts menu can be used to illustrate a listing of indicators on any particular chart.

The charts menu can be used to change the chart from bar chart to line chart to candlesticks chart.

This menu can be used to change the chart periodicity - the time-frames that are used in trading for example 5 minute timeframe or 1 Hour timeframe.

The template button is used to save a trading system and this template button is also used to load the same system on another chart.

Grid is used to place and add or remove a grid on the trading chart, volume is used to show and illustrate tick volume, Auto Scroll will shift the trading chart to the most recent price bar mechanically, Chart shift will be used to move a chart towards the center so that as the chart leaves some margin to its right side.

Zoom in and Zoom out are self explanatory, Step-by-Step is used to move the chart step-by-step generally for purpose of back-testing systems.

Properties button is used to adjust various chart settings like the colour of the chart.

Tools Menu

The tools menu has few options; it is used to show and illustrate the history center of price data, there is also the language editor where traders can use for programming Expert Advisors and the last button is the 'Options' button where traders can adjust different trading options like server settings, chart settings, trade settings, Expert Advisors settings and also access to the MQL5 community of traders and programmers.

Window Menu

Window menu is used to arrange windows vertically, horizontally, cascaded or as icons. The open chart windows can also be accessed on this window menu appearing as a list.

Help Menu

The help menu is can be used by traders so as to get help topics about the MT4 platform software.

You can practice navigating the platform using the above tutorials and with a few hour of practice you'll have known how to navigate this platform.

Platform Toolbars

The most frequent used buttons that are discussed above can be found in the toolbars at the top of the platform as shown below, as a trader you as a stock indices trader can use these tool bars to get quick access to the various tools, just hover your mouse over any button to get an description of what that button does.

Toolbars on Index trading software - Shortcut to quickly access the most commonly used buttons on the platform.

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