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What Is MetaTrader 4

MetaTrader 4 is a free trading program from 2005 that brokers hand out: it shows live prices, charts and your trades, and carries your orders to the broker's computer, while the money itself stays with the broker. This paper shows you MT4 in five lines; the idea as a line to the broker with prices coming down it and orders going up; the four panes of the window; Market Watch filled with the real 10:00 prices of 25 August 2026 from this library's bars; and the login box on your platform, where the broker's three lines go.

Difficulty
Beginner
Reading time
5 min
Pages
8
Reviewed by
Saman Rahbar

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MetaTrader 4, in five lines

MetaTrader 4, usually written MT4, is a trading program from 2005 that brokers hand out free. It shows live prices, charts, your open trades and your balance, and it carries your buy and sell orders to the broker's computer. It runs as a Windows program, as a phone app, and at some brokers as a web page. It is not the broker: one company, MetaQuotes, makes it, and another, your broker, gives it to you with its own name on it, and your money sits with the broker while MT4 only shows it.

A line to the broker

Picture the line MT4 sits at the near end of. Your computer on the left runs the program; the broker's server, the computer in the middle, is where your account and your money actually are; the market beyond it is where the prices come from. Prices come down the line to your screen, and orders go up it when you click. Nothing is bought or sold inside MT4 itself: it shows what the broker sent, and sends back what you clicked, which is why the same program at two brokers can show two slightly different prices for the same minute.

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