MetaQuotes Software is the company that founded MetaTrader in 2000. In that same year, they launched their very first trading platform, the FX Charts. But in 2001, their previous product was renamed into MetaQuotes and in 2002, its third version was released. MetaTrader 4 was soon released after three years. This trading software showcases major changes in the software. MetaQuotes introduced MetaQuotes Language 4 (MQL4). In that same year, the mobile version of MT4 was also launched.
Over the next years, MT4 was considered the most popular trading platform. And in 2010, another version of MetaTrader was released. But MetaTrader 5 was not as famous as its predecessor MT4 maybe because of its lack of backward compatibility which is why it was accepted much slower by the trading public.
Addition of More Financial Instruments
MT4 only supports Forex trading. But over the years, since brokers were starting to add more markets into their available financial instruments, the MT4 also had to upgrade. With the release of MetaTrader 5, major markets such as Futures, bonds, stocks, options, and Forex are finally supported. As for the supported symbols, it has now become unlimited while its predecessor MT4 only supported 1024 tradable instruments.
Enhanced Charting Tools
There are a lot of retail traders who greatly rely on technical analysis. Because of this, the availability of charting tools is very important. MT4 and MT5 both have great charting tools. In MT4, it has a built-in library composed of 30 technical indicators as well as 3 graphical objects, particularly the Relative Strength Index, Bollinger Bands and Stochastics.
With MetaTrader 5, the charting tools were greatly enhanced. Now, the MT5 has 38 technical indicators and 44 graphical objects that can all be used in 21 timeframes.
New Order Filling Policies
Since the MT5 ought to surpass its predecessor, a new order filling policy now allows the use of additional execution conditions before you open a trade. As for MetaTrader 4, it only supports the ‘Fill or Kill’ policy. MT5 also has an additional order fill policy – Return and Immediate or Cancel policy.
Pending Orders
No matter the type of trader, this Pending Order is a very powerful tool to use. Aside from the market orders that can be used at the current market price, traders can now set pending orders that can be executed under certain order conditions.
Pending order types that are mostly used nowadays are the buy limits, buy stops, sell stops, and sell limits.
The buy market order becomes buy stops when a specific price reaches a certain level. For instance, a trader can execute the buy stop order whenever he predicts that a breakout will happen. Sell stops are similar to buy stops. These two are only used when a trader predicts a price fall.
Both buy limit and sell limit are mostly used by traders who predict an upcoming trend reversal. To make a buy limit order into a buy market order, the price has to fall lower than the pre-specified price then reverse to the upside once again.