Why are trading platforms important?
Forex markets are among the most volatile, given its high leverage, and can be traded 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. To help traders monitor positions and trends, forex trading platforms offer robust market analysis tools to buy and sell with efficiency and precision. These platforms can particularly assist traders employing technical analysis strategies with indicators to identify specific market trends. Indicators are technical analysis tools that are designed to help visualize complex price action and volatility trends based on specific criteria. Popular indicators include moving averages, relative strength index and Bollinger bands.
Automated trading software can also be utilized to eliminate emotion from trading by scheduling trade execution and allowing pre-planned strategies to run. Additional capabilities include analyzing market activity over multiple timeframes, backtesting trade strategies and executing multiple real-time trades simultaneously.
While IG’s proprietary web-based, desktop and mobile platforms contain and support many of these key features, forex traders may prefer the advanced capabilities provided by third party trading platforms such as Meta Trader 4 and TradingView.
It is important to note that even though trading platforms can provide access to forex markets and charts, an open trading account with a forex broker like IG US is required to execute trades. While IG does not currently support TradingView, forex traders can open and use a Metatrader4 account directly through IG.
What is TradingView?
TradingView is a powerful charting platform and social community. It boasts a modern user-friendly interface with a wide array of indicators and screeners. Their charts support multiple asset classes such as stocks, forex, cryptocurrencies and commodities. In addition to over 100 prebuilt indicators and charting tools, TradingView’s proprietary programming language Pine Script allows users to create custom indicators for specialized functionality.
TradingView also advertises social trading through an extensive network of news and trade ideas from other traders. Users have the capability to explore trading strategies others have posted and follow their accounts. They can also join live chats and video streams to interact with groups of traders with varying trading experience- from beginner to expert.
The subscription model includes both paid and free versions. Paid plans are tiered by increasing capabilities such as number of indicators per chart, active price alerts and additional data.
Key features
- Advanced charts and screeners
- 100+ popular indicators
- 50+ smart drawing tools
- An extensive trading community
- Paid and free versions
What is MetaTrader 4?
MetaTrader 4 is built for forex and has been a favorite of traders since its inception in 2005. The platform's analytical capabilities and automated trading systems provide fast and stable order execution. This speed and reliability has allowed MT4 to retain its relevance even among newer platforms like TradingView.
MetaTrader 4 also offers their code base for free which grants traders access to create and share their own algorithms for automated trading. These premade MetaTrader4 algorithms available to download or purchase through their marketplace are referred to as Expert Advisors or EAs. Because of the platform’s tenure as an industry favorite, this library of programs is among the largest.
Key features
- Algorithmic trading with a library of trading bots
- 30 technical indicators
- 3 execution modes
- Thousands of signals and copy trading
- Free with additional EAs available to purchase
TradingView vs MetaTrader chart comparison
Both platforms grant direct access to financial markets through a forex broker and provide advanced trading tools. TradingView is a powerful charting platform and social network for traders. MetaTrader 4 has a strong algorithmic trading focus with reliable execution. Below highlights other key distinctions between the platforms.
How to trade using MT4
- Create an account
- For a demo MT4 account, visit our MT4 demo account creation page
- Once you have an account, open My IG
- Click on ‘add an account’ at the bottom right of the screen
- Select an MT4 forex account
- Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the download process.
- Install MT4 on your preferred device
- Sign in and begin trading forex pairs
If you have trouble logging in, check our MT4 help and support area.
You can help develop your forex trading strategies using resources like IG’s Trading Academy. Once your strategy is developed, you can follow the above steps to opening an account and getting started trading forex.
Your profit or loss is calculated according to your full position size. Leverage will magnify both your profits and losses. It’s important to manage your risks carefully as losses can exceed your deposit. Ensure you understand the risks and benefits associated with trading leveraged products before you start trading with them. Trade using money you’re comfortable losing.
