As a newbie to Forex, I was surprised to notice that, in metatrade 4, bullish or uptrend candlesticks are colored black as a default, and bearish or downtrend candlesticks are in white?
Shouldn’t the default be the other way round?
I mean, in most charts in programs and websites, uptrend candles are either in white or green, while downtrend candles are black or red. What is the reason behind MT4 coloring them in reverse?
I know I can change the colors. But I prefer to stick with the default, so that I don’t confuse myself if I see MT4 snapshots elsewhere. I just need to see the reasoning behind making the default that way.
I didn’t know that my question was that funny. I’m just a confused newbie, hoping for someone nice to help me understand, not make fun of my questions. I thought this is a friendly forum.
Pay no nevermind to them…sometimes it’s just a silly forum :29:
I have no idea what the reasoning is behind the color choices from platform to platform, but I’d say most of them allow you to change them to anything you’d like to make it easier for you to differentiate between them.
The only reasoning I can come up with is that in the past, mostly everything printed was in black & white, so it seemed to become a standard to have a white background, with solid black bear candles, and white/hollow outlined bull candles.
MT4 seemed to like a black background so of course the candles would have to be inverted to match.
With color technology, bull candles became green, and bears became red, however nowadays it seems there is no standard except whatever is easiest on your eyes and if you print charts, then whatever’s easiest on your ink supply…
In all honesty, it may also be developer preference as well. I do know that the default MT4 layout very much resembles old printouts of charts. Personally, I prefer black to represent down-bars, and yellow to represent up closes. I’ve attached my template to this message for you to give a try. You never know, you might like it ;).
No problem solom, to add this to your MT4 setup, place the file at “C:\Program Files(Your Broker’s MT4 Platform Folder emplates.”
After you’ve done this, open your MT4 platform, right click a chart, and hover over the word “template” in the drop down area. You should the the template titled “eurusd” there if you added everything correctly.
(ps. In order to get the template to show up in the MT4, you must close MT4 while you add the file to the folder and then re-open it after it successfully copies over).
The reason why MT4 uses a black background is because of two reasons: it’s easy on the eyes, and saves electricity.
Black is the easiest colour/shade to be displayed on a computer monitor, hence, saving you some money on your electricity bill. At the same time, if you wanted to stare at the charts, it is easier on your eyes, as it is neutral (think about getting snowblind staring at the white snow all day). Or would you rather stare at a red background?
White, pops out of the black, and the green is simply another primary colour that is easier to produce on the LCD screen.
