Most investors assumed that MT5 of MetaQuotes was an updated version of MT4, but over the years MT4 has grown in use and popularity. The reason is that there seems to be no significant differences between the two, and the markets they focus on are different.

MT4 was launched in 2005 with the slogan “the most popular forex trading platform”. Its target market is mainly forex market, and the trading products are forex and CFD.

Launched in 2010, MT5 was positioned as “the choice for millions of Forex and stock traders”, focusing “Powerful”, “Professional” and “Multi-asset”. So in addition to forex, the target market also covered stocks, futures and bonds.

The followings are the main differences between the two:

Different position accounting system

MT4 has only one position system, that is, the hedging system, which is commonly used by brokers in the forex market; MT5 adds position system adopted by the exchange markets, the netting system.

Under the hedging system, multiple positions of the same commodity will be independent to each others, even the opposite position.

Under the netting system, only one position and net amount of the same commodity will be maintained, and there will be no opposite position.

2 more order types

Both systems have Buy limit, Sell limit, Buy stop and Sell Stop, but MT5 has added Buy stop limit and Sell stop limit.

Market depth function

MT5 has added this function because it supports more types of trading products than MT4. The depth of the market shows the actual volume, real-time trading request for the bid and ask prices, which is convenient for investors to understand the market liquidity of the market at that time.

Principles of orderexecution

The principle of MT4 order execution is Fill or Kill (FOK), in which all the trading amounts in an order need to be filled; If any part cannot be executed, the order will be cancelled. The principle of MT5 order execution is that partial fill is allowed, and the remaining unfilled position will be automatically converted to limit order or market order.

It should be noted that MT5 follows the U.S. Regulations and the principle of “first in, first out” (FIFO). Positions placed in priority need to be closed first before closing the subsequent positions.

time framesof the chart, technical indicators, and programming language

MT5 provides 21 time frames for the chart is and MT4 is 9.

MT5 has 38 built-in technical indicators and MT4 has about 30.

MT5’s programming language is MQL5, and MT4’s programming language is MQL4, but the two are not compatible.

After comparing the two, MT5 seems to have more comprehensive features than MT4, but since the new features are not necessary to the investors or newbies and the use of MQL4 programming language has been widely used by those existing investors, MT4 is still the mainstream in the market at present.

Therefore, most forex brokers believe that MT4 will not be replaced in a short time due to such market demand.

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Risk Warning: The above content is for reference only and does not represent ZFX’s position. ZFX does not assume any form of loss caused by any trading operations conducted in accordance with this article. Please be firm in your thinking and do the corresponding risk control.

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