MetaTrader 4 (MT4) — Issued by the Server, or Set by You — Georgia
Part of what appears in MT4 arrived from the trading server already decided — the symbol list, the terms of each contract, the smallest volume an order may carry. The rest is yours to set.
Open Exness Account →Open MT4 for the first time and two different things are on the screen at once. One part was decided by the trading server before the account signed in: which symbols exist for it, what one lot of each is worth, the smallest step of volume an order may use and how a fill is agreed. The other part is entirely the trader — charts, timeframes, templates, indicators and the size of what is sent. Knowing which is which turns most of a frustrating first hour into a non-question.
Measured order execution — Standard
How orders actually filled when real market orders were placed on Exness’s MT5 feed — fill time, slippage and rejects by order size:
| Instrument | Order size | Avg fill | Avg slippage | Fails |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EURUSDm | 0.01 lot | 151 ms | -0.333 pts | 0 |
| EURUSDm | 0.1 lot | 151 ms | -0.333 pts | 0 |
| EURUSDm | 1.0 lot | 146 ms | -0.333 pts | 0 |
| GBPUSDm | 0.01 lot | 141 ms | 0.667 pts | 0 |
| GBPUSDm | 0.1 lot | 130 ms | 0.0 pts | 0 |
| GBPUSDm | 1.0 lot | 135 ms | 0.333 pts | 0 |
| XAUUSDm | 0.01 lot | 141 ms | 0.0 pts | 0 |
| XAUUSDm | 0.1 lot | 151 ms | 80.0 pts | 0 |
| XAUUSDm | 1.0 lot | 130 ms | -72.333 pts | 0 |
Small sample (a few round-trips per size); indicative. The same pricing engine feeds every platform the broker offers.
MetaTrader 4 (MT4) at Exness
- The symbol list in Market Watch is issued by the server: an instrument that is not there is not hidden by a setting, it is simply not served to that account.
- Every symbol carries a specification — contract size, tick size, digits, smallest and largest volume — and no option inside the terminal edits it.
- The volume step decides which sizes an order ticket will accept; a figure landing between two steps is refused by the server, not by the window.
- Whether an order is filled at market or at the price requested follows the account the terminal signs into, rather than a preference chosen in the platform.
- Yours to set: chart layout, timeframes on screen, templates, indicators, profiles, alerts and where the window sits.
- Also yours: which of the served symbols stay visible, which account is connected, and the direction and size of every order.
- The order ticket offers market orders and pending buy and sell limits and stops with stop loss and take profit — part of what the platform provides, not something to switch on.
- The link between terminal and server is encrypted at 128 bits, a property of the connection rather than a checkbox.
- The program itself dates from 2005; what differs between one broker and another is the server it points at, not the software.
Which terminal you connect from — the one line of this page you choose
| Platform | Pricing model | Best for | Devices |
|---|---|---|---|
| MetaTrader 5 | Spread (+ commission on Raw/Zero) | Everything the account is served, inside one terminal | Windows, Mac, Web, iOS, Android |
| MetaTrader 4 | Spread (+ commission on Raw/Zero) | Currency-led work in the older, lighter terminal | Windows, Mac, Web, iOS, Android |
| Exness Terminal | Spread (+ commission on Raw/Zero) | Nothing to install — the account opens in a browser tab | Any modern web browser |
| Exness Trade app | Spread (+ commission on Raw/Zero) | Watching and closing positions away from a desk | iOS, Android |
The rows differ in where they run and what they put on screen. The account behind them, and therefore the pricing, is the same account in every row.
Get started
Download MetaTrader 4 (MT4) from your Personal Area area after you open an account, or try it first on a free demo.
Open Exness Account →Where the settings dialog stops
Almost everything reachable from the options of the terminal is presentation: colours, grids, how many bars a chart keeps, whether a one-click panel is shown. None of it reaches the quote or the contract. An evening spent on templates changes how the market looks, not what it costs.
The boundary is easy to find by looking for the thing that refuses. An order ticket that will not take a volume, a symbol that will not appear in the list, a value per point that stays where it is — each of those is the server answering, and no amount of configuration argues with it.
It follows that a checklist of platform settings can never be a complete answer to why something happened. Half the answers are not in the program at all, and an honest list separates the two instead of printing them in one column.
Which of these is a setting, and which is issued
| What appears in MT4 | Where it comes from | Can a setting change it |
|---|---|---|
| The list of symbols in Market Watch | Issued by the server for that account | No |
| Contract size and value per point | The symbol specification | No |
| Smallest and largest volume an order may carry | The symbol specification | No |
| How a fill is agreed | The account the terminal signs into | Not from inside the platform |
| Which of the served symbols stay on screen | The trader | Yes |
| Timeframes, templates, indicators, colours, alerts | The trader | Yes |
| Direction and volume of every order | The trader | Yes, in the steps above |
The left column is the same screen either way. The middle column is the reason two traders on identical installs can see different things.