An Introduction To Forex Trading Platforms

What is the Trading Platform?

A Trading Platform is an electronic programmed software through which investors and traders can open, close and manage market positions through a financial intermediary. Various financial products can be traded through Trading Platforms over electronic communication networks.

Trading platforms typically stream live market prices with a number of different tools, such as chart packages, news feeds, and account management functions. Some platforms have been specifically designed to give access to users of some certain firms merely. They may also be designed to perform trade automatically based on specific strategies, technical analysis or to do high-frequency trading.

Trading platforms evolved to allow for live streaming prices and near instant execution of orders as well as using the internet as the underlying network meaning that location became much less relevant. Some electronic trading platforms have built-in scripting tools and even APIs allow traders to develop automatic or algorithmic trading systems and robots.

Forex traders have a choice of which trading platform to use. However, this choice is limited to the choice of Forex broker, as not every type of trading platform is offered by every broker. In this post, we have listed some popular trading platforms.

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•  MetaTrader 4

MetaTrader 4, also known as MT4, is an electronic trading platform widely used by online retail foreign exchange traders. It was developed by MetaQuotes Software and released in 2005. The software is licensed to foreign exchange brokers who provide the software to their clients. The software consists of both a client and server component. The server component is run by the broker and the client software is provided to the broker’s customers, who use it to see live streaming prices and charts, to place orders, and to manage their accounts.

MetaTrader 4 is available for mobile phones, so traders could analyze the market on the way. Basically, it provides two types of trading orders: Pending Orders and Market Orders. Pending orders will be executed only when the price reaches a predefined level, whereas Market orders can be executed in one of the four modes: Instant Execution, Request Execution, Market execution, and Exchange execution.

The Metatrader 4 trading platform is very well known and can definitely serve the industry standard.

• MetaTrader 5

MetaTrader 5 is upgraded version of MetaTrader 4 platform. MetaTrader 5 is an institutional multi-asset platform offering outstanding trading possibilities and technical analysis tools, as well as enabling the use of automated trading systems (trading robots) and copy trading. MetaTrader 5 is an all-in-one platform for trading Forex, Stocks, and Futures.

The Meta Trader 5 or MT5 tool is a very useful software as it provides a secure and reliable account to the traders. It’s available for all kind of mobile devices like Android and iOS.

• cTrader

cTrader is a forex trading platform. This platform stands out because it has been custom designed for use with ECN brokers. Since its initial launch with FxPro, cTrader became the platform of choice for several other leading ECN brokers, including Liquid Markets, Pepperstone and Admiral Markets.

Some of the key differences are the user interface, the advanced take profit and stop loss systems, detachable charts, varying chart time frames, live sentiment and depth of market displayed by default.

• NinjaTrader

NinjaTrader is developed to use in the stock, futures and generally forex markets. There is no fee for using NinjaTrader’s standard features, which include advanced charting, market analytics, automated strategy development, backtesting and optimization, and trade simulation. Traders who wish to use NinjaTrader to execute live trades through a brokerage account may either purchase a lifetime license or lease the platform on a quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis. In addition to NinjaTrader Brokerage, which supports live trading for the futures and forex market.ReadMore About Explanation of a Forex Broker

• TradingView

TradingView is cloud-based charting and social-networking software suitable for all levels of active traders. It’s a great tool for anyone who is a visual thinker who appreciates research before diving into an investment. The biggest downside is that the app currently doesn’t support many stock brokerages.

TradingView was released in June 2012 as a social platform for active traders and features its own scripting language that allows users to customize charts and indicators. It continues to be a popular choice among active traders and financial software companies because of its versatility. TradingView is preferred by chart lovers and visual thinkers.