Why Is MT4 Preferred Over MT5 By Some Traders?

If your interest lies in forex trading, you might have gathered some knowledge of Metatrader 4 and Metatrader 5 platforms. Considered the world’s most widely acclaimed trading platforms, millions of traders from different parts of the world use MT4 and MT5 on a daily basis, benefitting from their superior services.

Although analyzing their names, one would assume MT5 is an upgraded version of MT4, in practicality, both these solution offers distinctive features and functions to cover the needs of various targeted trading audiences.

Now, coming to the most important question- whether to choose MT4 or MT5 and which is the better one for traders? The answer depends solely on your background, trading aims and goals, along with other signifying factors.

MT4 and MT5 have in stock a number of trading tools for the ease of their respective users, but some traders feel inclined towards MT4 more than MT5. To know why this happens, we need to compare the two packages and look into their functionality.

An Insight into Meta Trader 4:

MT4, launched on July 1, 2005, was a huge success mainly because it is a simple and easy-to-use electronic trading platform, providing millions of users access to the financial market. Although Meta Trader 4 was originally intended for forex trading, the platform is also open and useful for trading other assets like stocks, cryptocurrencies, indices, as well as commodities via CFDs.

The primary reason that beginners and experienced traders equally appreciate MT4 is due to the platform’s multi-functionality and user-friendly. In addition, it enables the users to customize the interface according to their requirements and provides advanced and up-to-date trading tools, making it simpler for traders to implement their preferred strategies.

Strengths of MT4:

The key strengths of Meta Trader 4 that makes it a hot pick for most traders include:

• Easy to use and does not involve a lot of complicated panels, buttons or information.
• MT4 supports more than thirty languages
• MetaQuotes provides marketing plus technical assistance
• the platform is being continuously upgraded and improved to meet the new standards
• Highly secured platform with a 128-bit encryption scheme to protect the data.
• You can customize MQL4 language scripts, advisors and indicators.
• Vast functionality; with order types and execution options and different timeframes to choose from.

An Insight Into Meta Trader 5:

MT5, released in 2010, offers a broad spectrum of applications as it is an all-in-one multi-asset trading platform- the financial market it covers includes stocks, futures and FX trading instruments. While MT5 is comparatively more efficient and faster than MT4, as MT5 is 64-bit, multi-threaded platform and MT4 is a 32-bit, single-threaded platform; it doesn’t blur out the potential of the previous platform.

MT5 is simply different in functionality and offers more than MT4. This platform provides the ground for trading more instruments in almost all financial markets. To name a few, Forex, indices, commodities and expanding to even cryptocurrencies.

Strengths of MT5:

• It comprises all the essential tools needed for successful trading
• Provides advanced technical and fundamental analysis
• Gives information about buyers’ and sellers’ nearest bids and price movements
• MT5 also comes with a netting mechanism
• Improved accuracy of testing results
• Introduction of non-standard timeframes
• Increased number of fundamental indicators.

Reasons Why Traders Prefer MT4 over MT5:

Since its release in 2005, the MT4 platform has actively dominated the forex trading market, credit to its innovative features. And it continues to do so, up to this date, with more than 95 percent of brokers offering it as the chief trading option to their respective clients.

There 5 major reasons why traders prefer MT4; these are:

1.      Unique MQL4 language and editing feature:

With the assistance of this function, users can write any automated trading program (EA) and customize technical indicators they need using this simple and easy-to-use programming language. As long as you understand the MQL4 programming language, you can incorporate any analysis tools you want on the market panel.

2.      Organized and concise user interface:

MT4 applications for MAC, PC, IOS, and Android take a distinctive approach, completely avoiding the lesser-used functions and placing the most-used functions in the noticeable positions. Due to this, users no longer struggle to deal with an endless loop of messy buttons for various functions.

Moreover, the relevant information about the other functions is highlighted on the homepage. Over time, beginners can easily figure out how the platforms work, unlike other platforms that can be intimidating.

3.      Endless customization freedom:

MT4 provides the option of changing the platform’s primary color and other customization freedom- you can find it in the properties tab- for instance, traders in the United States and Europe can use different color schemes for marking the price increases and declines as opposed to Asian traders.

Additionally, MT4 also has many in-built technical indicators, which, in turn, offer a large number of personalization choices. Users can adjust them easily to meet their preferences.

4.      Backtesting strategies:

Besides allowing traders to write EA software freely, the MT4 platform also allows backtesting the created EA strategies. It is a highly efficient feature, especially for those interested in quantitative trading.

MT4 successfully gives an understandable and detailed report after a round of testing; for example, the tick-level strategy backtesting by MT4 is quite comprehensive. However, it needs back-end server data support which most market data software fails to provide.

5.      Option for hedging:

Though MT5 is a newer platform for trading, it does not provide hedging options. It is one of the biggest reasons that lead to a further boost in the popularity of MT4. Hedging provides protection to the trader’s funds or assets and reduces the impact of any future negative event.

MT5 does not support hedging or multi-hedging, but it is something that most traders search for when choosing a platform for operating. On the other hand, MT4 allows its clients to hedge their portfolios and make their accounts even safer.

In Conclusion:

Meta Trader 4 (MT4) and Meta Trader 5 (MT5) are the world’s most recognized trading platforms developed by MetaQuotes software corp. These programs have their strengths, features and functionality that set them apart from each other. Although MT5 has been launched recently, most traders are inclined toward MT4. Key factors behind its massive success lie in its multi-functionality, user-friendliness, customization options and advanced trading tools. Forex traders can implement their favorite strategies, and such freedom of choice and simplicity of use make MT4 a preferable platform.

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