The basis of the trader's activity is receiving profit from operations on buying or selling financial assets. Confidence in the chosen direction of the trade and skills to effectively use the potential of all instruments of the trading terminal are integral components of a professional approach to the activity.
Trading orders can be considered the most important and necessary link in the trading system. Understanding the principles of their formation and execution allows building a flexible and effective strategy, which is a significant advantage in a highly dynamic market. An order is a trade command to buy or sell a certain financial asset that a trader forms for a broker. All necessary parameters and conditions are set up directly in the terminal menu and then transmitted for execution. Besides, it is possible to modify or completely cancel some types of orders that have already been sent to the broker.
A trade is a fact of buying or selling a financial instrument, which is the result of order execution. An open trade, unlike an order, cannot be canceled or modified. All you can do with it is to close it (fully or partially), as well as to set limits on loss or profit.
Knowing how to work with different types of orders will help you to make your trading more flexible and free. For example, when using certain orders, you can forget about the need to spend long hours watching the terminal and waiting for the right moment to open a position. This will save not only time but also psychological balance, violation of which is often the main source of wrong decisions. Many beginners do not use the huge potential of the trading terminal in everyday activities. Most often, work with orders is limited to a simple buy or sell, which significantly reduces the potential of the trader. Excessive conservatism is most often due to insecure possession of additional opportunities. This generates a fear of making a mistake and getting a loss, which is why clear and not always the most effective tools take their place in the basic set. The most popular and widespread MetaTrader trading terminals offer 8 order types, two of which appeared in the last generation of the platform. According to the fundamental principles of operation, all orders are divided into two groups:
1. Market order. An order to immediately buy or sell a certain financial asset at the most favorable current market price. The simplicity of this type has led to the fact that many traders often use it as the only way to open a position.
2. Pending order. An order to sell or buy a financial asset if the specified parameters are met. The main difference from the market type is that once the order is sent, it does not open immediately. The order is processed and waits for the matching of necessary parameters. The waiting time can be very long, but once all conditions have coincided, the system automatically opens a trade.
There are only two types of market orders: market buy and market sell. In both cases, the mechanism is extremely simple and transparent: a trade is opened instantly after you press the corresponding button in the terminal window.
The other six types belong to the group of pending orders and have more complex working principles. Using their features allows making trading more flexible and less time-consuming. Many professionals only open positions using pending orders and thus spend only a few minutes a day analyzing the market and identifying entry points. This is an excellent example of how you can effectively use all available opportunities:
Execute the Correct Orders
A solid comprehension of the various order types will allow you to employ the appropriate instruments to accomplish your purposes - how exactly you want to enter the market and how you are going to exit. Despite the wide range of types of orders, market, stop and limit orders are still the most widely used. Make sure to familiarize yourself with the proper order execution otherwise your capital will be at risk.
How to place an order on MT4 Before opening a Forex position, you should first install a trading terminal. It can be downloaded from the broker's website over here https://paxforex.org/metatrader4/download_MT4 To open an order, you have 2 options – 1) click the “Tools” tab on the terminal and then go to "New order";
1.1 Then choose the asset needed from the drop-down list.
2) Also, you can just double-click on the desired symbol – for example, EUR/USD. Now you see the order window.
Volume – here we indicate the number of lots we want to buy, in our case it`s 1 lot.
Setting the Stop Loss - in this window you should specify the value at which the automatic closing of the order will take place to reduce losses. It can be set as desired.
Take Profit - helps to close the order automatically when the necessary profit is reached. For example, you can put the value of 1.4358 in this case, your profit is 10 points is about $ 100, in our case. If you do not set this order, then you will have to close the position manually.
On the order type tab, we choose market execution.
After you have filled in all necessary fields, click on the "Buy" or "Sell" button, and the position will be opened and you will the pop-up notification.
Modifying Trades
To do this, right-click on the open order in the terminal and in the window that will open choose the line - "Modify or delete order". This is how it looks like:
Then the window for order modification will open:
Please note that the terminal already offers you a fixed number of points for Stop Loss and Take Profit. You just need to click on the red and blue "copy" buttons and the values will be displayed. The "Modify" button, inactive now, will become active, all you need to do is to click on it.
This is the most primitive thing you can do! You have three options:
In the "Level" fields you can type any value you want; By clicking on the arrow next to the level value, you can choose any of the proposed levels; Or you can type Stop Loss and Take Profit manually.
Summary
The trading terminal offers many more options for placing an order than we used to think. Some of them seem quite complicated even for understanding, let alone constant use. Despite this, they should still be taken into account and actively practiced today. If you have doubts about your abilities or are not sure whether pending orders will be suitable for your trading strategy, you can always resort to the possibilities of a demo account.
If your trading system allows you to work with pending orders, the sooner you move to them, the more organized, calm and successful your trading will be Proceeding from the aforesaid, the use of the pending orders is an excellent tool for an increase in the general efficiency of trade and time saving, as well as allows controlling its emotions.
