What does it do?

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No doubt this will be seen as a stupid question, but what the hell...


What does MetaTrader do? I can't see anything as simple as an "About", "List of features" or even a "Screenshots" link to figure things out.


At the moment, I do all my trading through an online broker - via their website. Their website sucks and quite often fails to get quotes or allow you to trade - so I have to resort to phoning them and spending several minutes on hold waiting to get through to the call-center, and then several minutes while they call through trades to a broker. All very slow and useless.


I don't even know if I'm using the right terms, but I figured I'd google for "trading platform", and see what turned up.


My goal is simple: to be able to execute trades faster and more reliably than via my current broker. Does simply installing MetaTrader allow you to do that, or do you have to sign-up for and pay a service fee to a middle-man (brokerage?) How would I transfer my current holding from my current broker into a location I can trade via MetaTrader?


Basically, where's the Getting Started guide and a FAQ?


Ash

 
Rosh :
Download terminal and try (https://download.mql5.com/cdn/web/metaquotes.software.corp/mt4/mt4setup.exe?utm_campaign=MQL5.community) It's free.

Hi Rosh,


I'm not in the habbit of installing every .exe I stumble across on the Internet, so try to find out what the point of some software is BEFORE installing it. I suffer far fewer viruses problems than family and friends who install every program they come across.


Surely it's not uncommon to want to know what software does before downloading it?


Ash

 

For the benefit of anyone else...


After installing MetaTrader you can get access to a whole bunch of help files - including instructions on how to install it...


That's a bit Catch 22 isn't it - so you may want to go and read the Getting Started page at Alpari (I'm sure it's a no-no to link to a specific broker - but there doesn't appear to be any help documentation on this site, and these forums point to Alpari as a good place for a demo account.)


MetaTrader on its own is sod all use. You need to "Open an account" to make any use of it (opening an account gives you access to data and news you'll need to feed the trading platform. Several people provide free demo accounts so you can try the software properly at no risk, no cost. Alpari's just one of 'em.)


I haven't had chance to discover which securities on which markets you can trade - I guess that depends on which broker you open an account with(?) By default, MetaTrader seems focussed on foreign-exchange and american indicies - it's not very cleaer how to get access to specific securities/equities or where I'd go to track and trade FTSE stocks (being a UK fella.)


Let us know if I've got anything wrong - I'm sure future readers will be grateful.

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