I actively used MT4 some years ago until I had to walk away from FX trading due to other career and life commitments. I was very happy with MQL4 and had written EAs/indicators natively and ones which interfaced to MATLAB. I’m now looking to get into FX trading again. It seems in my absence, Metatrader 5 has been released. It’s available for download from their site but I can’t find much other reference to it online. Most of the broker support and chat all seems to be around the older platform. If I’m going to get back into using one or the other, what’s best to plump for right now? Is MT4 in danger of going obsolete any time soon?
Stick with MT4 for now. MT5 is still in Beta testing. I’m not aware of any live trading using the platform and no introduction dates. The last discussion I read on the MQL5 site seemed to indicate lots of instability from one update to another. There is no compelling reason for a broker to switch to MT5, so my guess is that its still a year away from first introduction and several years from complete adoption.
Great answer, CM. I’ll stick with MT4 for now. It’s what I’m familiar in any case. I’ll watch the developments of MT5 with interest. The market depth feature looks useful.
Guys, in any case, there isn’t anything much in MT5. It’s been in Beta testing for a year and a half. Basically, you’ll get the same thing. Well no, some features are missing. Like hedging is not allowed in the platform itself. I think that MT will be loosing their leader positions really soon. They have fell asleep. Their platform has been around for 10 years. It haven’t changed (almost). It is totally outdated. They are using technology which is also 10 year old. The platform itself is broker oriented, not trader. Hopefully MT6 will be updated, to this millennium.
Presumably, you are speaking from the trader’s point of view. From the technical and software develop point of view, there are several things to recommend in MQL5. The debugger will make verification testing much easier and reliable. It has proper event handling for timed and cursor events which should make coding much easier plus being able to do things with user interaction that weren’t possible before. I may have missed a few that others know about; these are the ones that I can remember best.
You raise an interesting point Aerozot. If MT4 is getting outdated and MT5 is not ready yet what are the good alternatives for automated/algorithmic trading? Are there competitors to MT which I should look at as an alternative? I do like MQL as it’s so easy to write for but it does lack some advanced constructs.
As sad as it may be, but MetaTrader is a leader. The competitive software isn’t as good yet. The Forex industry is still really young. I think, that really soon, they will have some serious competition. And MT will loose their position, for being ignorant
