Let’s analyse the interface by considering every point displayed in the image:

Area 1

This area of the window shows you the evolution of pairs of currencies with bid and ask values. This windows will be generally used to submit orders. An order can be submitted by double clicking on the symol that will launch another window in which you can execute your order. This window has also a sub-window that is called tick chart and can be activated by double clicking in the bottom part of the window. che può essere attivata facendo click in basso nella scheda.

Keyboard short cut to open \ close the markets’  monitoring: CTRL + M.

Area 2

This window allows you to quickly access the terminal’s functions. These services are arranged in a tree-structure that can be opened by clicking on the “+”.  There are five groups: Accounts, Indicators, Expert advisor, Custom indicators and Scripts.

The ” Accounts “ node allows you to manage new demo accounts.

The node of the indicators allows you to build personal indicators.

The ” Expert advisors ” node allows you to use automatic exchange programs with pairs of currencies.

The ” Custom Indicators ” allow you to customize your technical indicators.

The script node contains programs similar to the ones in ” Expert advisors ” but can be executed only one at the time.

The bookmark window allows you to save your scripts and advisors.

Keyboard shortcut to open \ close the Navigator: CTRL + N

Area 3

This is a multi tasking window that allows you to access areas with different functions: you can check the account’s history, read news, set advisors , read mails and logs and ultimately, there is a system that shows you the latest events of the terminal.

In the Trade tab you can view what is occurring with open positions and pending orders. It contains these fields:

• Acquired safety time.
• Type of order either Buy and Sell orders or pending orders Buy Limit, Sell Limit, Buy Stop and Sell Stop orders.
  
• Number of parcels for any order.
• Safety symbol.
• The safety price has been purchased.
• The stop loss (riduzione delle perdite).
• The take profit.
• The current price.
• The commission charged.
• Payed or received swaps.
• Current profit.

It also contains the balance, equity, and free and level margin.

The account history window shows all the previous made operations. Under the news window there will be the service offered from your broker ( you can read his messages here ). Under the reminders window you can edit or create new indicators for your events. You can read the mails and messages you receive from the terminal in the Email window.

Keyboard shortcut to open \ close Terminal: CTRL + T

Area 4

This is the graphic area of MetaTrader. It is usually made of one or more graphs that represent the currency price in that moment. MetaTrader opens Costituita solitamente da uno o più grafici che raffiguranti il prezzo di una moneta in un dato periodo di tempo. MetaTrader starts up with four graphic windows as showed in the image. You can edit the time and dimension of the charts and their zone too.

Area 5

This is the tool bar of the terminal: in this area there are four tool bars separated by vertical lines. The first bar is the one known as the standard tool bar, used for the general management of the terminal. The second bar is the one known as the graph tool bar and is used to manage your charts. The third bar is called the analysis tool bar and is used to monitor your objects in the chart. Ultimately, you find the time tool bar that allows you to manage the timeline of the graph.

The first of the two bars keeps the same direction of the main trend. For example, if you have an ascending trend it will have a positive closure very close to the trend’s maximum value. In the following bar, the opening price will be similar to the maximum of the previous bar. From this point on, the psychology of who buys or sells will influence the trend’s evolution thus letting the currency, title or index fall.

Although this method is very useful,  its usage is far more limited than the methods regarding a single depletion bar because it needs of a very long trend and that the two bars considered have a range larger than the average.

Another feature of the two bars is that sometimes the maximum price of the two bars is the same. In this case, a zone of significant price is created and most times it is the area in which an inversion has already happened in the past.

By studying a candlestick, you can notice that above and below the main candle there are vertical lines that continue for a given length. The vertical line above the candlestick indicates that the quotation has reached to its maximum, while the line below the candlestick indicates that the quotation has reached its minimum and therefore it will rise in the future.

In order to recognize a trend’s reversal you will need to keep in mind three points:

• the bar must be very wide because it develops after a strong quotation movement;
• the closure must be bigger than the opening if the trend is ascending and smaller if it is negative;
• the closure must be above the bar in order to have an ascending inversion and below the bar to have a descending inversion.

The wider is the bar and the less is the thickness of the candlestick, the more accurate will be your prevision on the trend’s reversal.

Support and resistance levels can be static or dynamic, depending in which way the the lines can be drawn ( horizontal if they are static and oblique if dynamic ).

When a support level is exceeded that same line becomes a resistance level for ascending trends. On the other hand, if a resistance line is exceed, that line will become of support in future descending trends.

Regarding support and resistance levels, you must keep in mind three things:

1. if there are many trades next to a resistance line that means that many traders have bought and now want to sell.;
2. you will have to evaluate accurately the distance between the support line and the resistance one in order to define their strength;
3. you will have to evaluate accurately the period of time in order to define the strenght of the lines.

MetaTrader is compatible with the Windows operating systems  ( 98, ME, 2000 , XP, Vista ) and even for mobile devices and smartphones based on Windows Mobile. You can find more information here.

First of all you will have to download MetaTrader 4.
You can either click on the image on the left or by pasting the link in your browser:

http://www.metaquotes.net/files/mt4setup.exe

You can now begin the installation by following the instructions on the screen.

The first page that will appear after the installation of MetaTrader 4 will appear as the following:

In particular, this will bethe registration page:

Fill in the form with your personal information. You can leave the leverage ( the ratio between borrowed money and your own ) on 1:100. Do not forget to set a cache ( the initial amount of the main currency ).

The terminal allows to operate with two different types of accounts: the demo and the real account. The demo account allows you to trade in virtual conditions ( thus without real money ) and allows to plan very effective strategies. The demo account offers the possibilites of the real one. By filling the form above the image, you will open a demo account. To open a real account you will have to choose a broking company.

Opening a demo account with MetaTrader

To open a demo account you will just need to fill in the form in the startup and go on. If the registration succeeded, your personal information will be sent directly on your software in the Mailbox:

Your personal account information will also be displayed on the left :

When the registration is complete, your new account will apear in the ” Account Navigator” window. Instead of the writing underlined in red in the image to the left, there will be the name you inserted.

The client installation is now finished.

If any problem should come after the account’s opening, you can request the help of the support service or you can leave a post on our website.

In the next post we will talk about the MetaTrader user interface.

First of all, you can choose among three different ways to approach the Kagi graphs. The first way consists in the breakout technique, which relies on the ability of the user in grasping the line’s movements and color variations. Another approach aims to open a new position when there is a variation in the thickness of the line ( therefore a colore change ) and to close them exactly when the middle point of the previous linea is exceeded.

Before you decide how to move, will need to set a reversal amount thatn can be determined either by points or by percentages and will allow you to contain damages if you do a bad movement and, therefore, exit the trend where you are in now.

Choosing the right reversal amount is essential for the correct use of this graph. Choosing a very small reversal will make you nervous and your activity will not be tranquil. On the other hand, if you choose a very big reversal, you will draw promising graphs but rather unreal, with the risk of giving away part of your benefit back to the market.

The Kagi graphs are made by showing the price and not the time. On the Kagi graph the evolution of prices is represented by two lines: the thick and green one is for the ascending tendency and the thin, red line is for the descending trends. The thickness of the lines derives from the japanese culture: the yang is the beauty, thus the thick and green line. The Yin, the ugliness, is red and thin.

The color change happens when the values of the previous maximums and minimums are exceeded in the given trend. If you are drawing a green line and the price goes down but not below the trend’s minimum point, the line will continue to be green. On the other hand, if the price goes beneath the minimum point, the line will become red.

When the price chances direction, therefore from ascending to descending, you will need to draw a straight and horizontal line called “inflection line” and then move towards the new direction.

MetaTrader is one of the most advanced and operative trading platforms that allows you to work on the Forex, Fures and CFD markets and to check your trading activities in an easy and versatile way.

In particular, MetaTrader 4 offers :

• A total control over your trading account
• Execution of requests in the shortest time
• Ability to maintain offset positions
• Advanced technical and graphical analysis tools
• Differentiated technology of order execution
• Fast acquisition of news and information
• Ability to plan trading strategies
• Customizable demo account

The try-out demo account makes this graphical and technical platform one of the best platforms in circulation. For this reason, many brokers support this platform and among these you can find:

• Alpari
• FastBrokersFX
• Forex.com
• FXCM
• FXDD
• Interbank FX

The few difficulties that you can find ( for example the order entry ) can be easily passed thanks to the many guides that you can find online and on our website.

Meta trader is also available for mobile devices: it presents the same features of the PC version of MetaTrader 4 and allows to maneuver operations from any place. These operations are also possible:

• Valuable trading
• Charts
• Dow Jones newswires
• Technical Analysis
• Trading history
• Acoustic signals
• Low traffic

It requires Windows CE o Windows Mobile.

Free download of MetaTrader 4

MetaTrader 4 is a completely free platform and supports multilanguage.

Download MetaTrader 4

Download the setup file (mt4setup.exe, 3.5Mb) in your PC, run it and install the program following th instructions that appear on your screen. A registration window that allows a demo account creation will pop up when you run the program the first time.

MetaTrader 4 Mobile SE

This program allows you to stay always in touch with the financial market. MetaTrader 4 Mobile SE requires a smartphone based on Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 SE or superior.

• Windows Installer for MetaTrader 4 Mobile SE
  (2003 SE for Smartphones, 420 Kb)
• Smartphone Installer for MetaTrader 4 Mobile SE
  (2003 SE for Smartphones, 380 Kb)

MetaTrader 4 Mobile

This program allows you to stay always in touch with the financial market. It requires a Pocket PC with Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 or superior.

• Windows Installer for MetaTrader 4 Mobile
  (Pocket PC 2002, 550 Kb)

• PDA Installer for MetaTrader 4 Mobile
  (Pocket PC 2002, 1.3 Mb)

You must keep in mind that if a price mutates from its previous value, you will have to count the amount of bricks to which it moved and draw every brick moving column to column. Therefore, there is no brick different from another but they are all the same.

The moment in which the trend changes direction ( which means that you have to draw new bricks ) is known as the reversal.

The critical value of the Renko graph is the size of every brick. Very small values will create false signals while very big values will not allow you to judge correctly the trend. There is no standard or recommended value. Everything depends on your way of dealing with the trade. Therefore, you should understand your ideal value for every single brick after various attempts.

Finally, keep in mind that it is possible to draw bricks that represent a descending trend in black and an ascending trend in white, as you can notice in the image.

You  must be add a “brick”  to the graph whenever the price moves away from a default sum.

To build correctly a Renko graph, you will have to decide a specific date from which you want to start from. In order to place a brick of the same color ( that means that the graph follows the trend’s evolution ) you can either use the absolute value or the percentage graph. Between these two, the percentage is for sure the most relevant and common.

From this point on, if you join an ascending trend, which means that the price of closure of a first brick is higher than the price of the brick that preceded, you will have to add a number of bricks equal to the difference of the given bricks and then divide by the unitary value of every single brick. For every brick you must move to another column.

If the trend changes direction for a value higher than one brick, you will have to move to another column and add a certain number of bricks of different color than the previous ones. This number is given by the difference of price divided by the unitary value of every brick. If the trend’s evolution is lower than the value of a brick, you should ignore it.