So I’m really new to this, I put 200$ in an account and started trading with MT4.
I wanted to better understand how the take profit works
Reason I’m asking is I tried this today, and I put it in and expected it to sell once the price crossed my limit.
The common reason for a TP order to fail to trigger in a short position is that the ask price did not reach the TP price level, only the bid price. The ask price is always higher than the bid price and the difference between the two is the spread. This represents a profit element for the broker - after all, you cannot expect a business to buy somehting and sell it to their cutomers at the same price they bought it for - there would be no profit in doing that.
Charts are normally drawn using the bid price. The spread can vary enormously - you will often see the spread at 10 times the usual distance at certain times, for example at the start of the Asian trading week or even just as New York is closing each night, and definitely around important news announcements from central banks etc.
Thank you, that was helpful!
I haven’t really used MT4 much for trading, but in my TradingView app, the TP you set with an entry order or after the main order has been placed actually shows as a separate order within the Transaction history. You’ll see that the TP was set and if it was hit, with all the price levels too. Pretty easy to get confirmation. TradingView also show you how far the order currently sits from price. It’s called “distance” in the platform. Also super helpful.
