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Matering cTrader – The Definitive Guide

Times have changed drastically in the online trading world over the past 10 years; nowadays, there are several opportunities offered to quickly get set up and trade online; 5G (fast trading speeds), mobile trading via apps, advanced technical analysis via TradngView and more, it all now depends on your ability to make the most of these opportunities.

This article will walk you through the essentials of the cTrader trading platform, starting from the competitive benefits cTrader has through to other vital information about the cTrader trading platform.

cTrader is an exciting program, you could say it is the new kid on the block when it comes to trading software.

So, when comparing cTrader with MetaTrader4 (MT4), or MetaTrader5 (MT5) it is important to note that the MT4 platform is an already established trading platform, released in 2005, while a lot of people are only just starting to use cTrader or finding out about what it can do.

We will be exploring the top five features of cTrader, especially compared with MT4, and how you can make the most of these features. We would also go through how you can set up and start trading, and even a few live technical examples. To achieve this, we would consider a real-life scenario and how some of the tools of cTrader can help.

Getting Started With cTrader

Once you have download the cTrader software, you would see a register cTrader ID form that comes up in the desktop version.

One common mistake most people make the first time is filling this form and clicking ‘Sign up.’

The best way around this is if you already have a broker account is to simply get your account details from a client representative of your broker and close this window. This would take you to a sign in demo account creation. Once you are on this page, you can then sign in with your account details.

It is, however, important to sign in with your trading account information, not your cTrader ID. You should see the counters open straightaway. You should also see a couple of cTrader instruction videos, which is a unique feature of cTrader:

Once you have the platform open, you are then ready to get started with some of the fantastic tools of cTrader.

Top Features of cTrader

Advanced Order Protection

One of the most common feedback we get about why people like cTrader is its advanced order protection. This feature is absent in the MT Ford software. This gives the cTrader software to have better-charting options, and also better timeframe options. This means that you get to select a lot of different timeframes in the cTrader platform.

The cTrader program has a depth of market functionalities, which makes it very unique. This article explores a number of these functionalities and, of course, the ability to manage a trade.

First off, let’s take a look at the advanced order protection feature. Once your cTrader trading platform is open and you have an open trade, you would see a shield icon next to the ‘Trade down here’ on the bottom left corner. If you click this corner, it would open the window called the Advanced Protection Window.

This feature is not available in the MT4 platform, and what it allows you to do is it will enable users to select the type of taking profits they’d like to do and select multiple take profits.

So, one common and successful technique used in trading it to scale out trades as you begin to enter into profit. Most people don’t do this when they start out, but it is imperative, more so if you are trading some of the bigger patters where you have quite large take profits. You need to ensure that you can scale out of it, and cTrader makes it convenient to do just that.

Although the platform does require some familiarization as it has much more modern appeal compared to the MT4 platform that has been around for quite some time.

Using MetaTrader4 to scale-out trades requires planning your trades so you don’t have to trade one lot with a goal of three different take profit zones meaning you’d have to trade 0.25 0.25 0.25 and point to five and eventually close them at the different Pro-face Achill in different orders. Keeping in mind that this comes at no extra cost due to the fact that the spread is relative. The sad part is just that you’d have to end four different trades, and you’d be potentially slipped a little bit.

cTrader actually allows you to scale one trade, thereby shortening the contract size every time one of the take profits is available; you only have to select your volume in cTrader. The process of doing this is somewhat different from metatrader4 as well as cTrader lets you know the actual volume, so in the course of trading one lot as earlier mentioned, you are aware that this is a hundred thousand in the forex market.
You can see the details down to the amount of dollars involved with cTrader. Another implication of this is that if you select ten pips, this means that when the trade is in tempo take profit, it would actually take the profit and close the volume of 1k if you had 10k open. So you can simply do this multiple times and close the different amounts each time.
Stop-Loss Feature

Another amazing feature if the cTrader software that a lot of users like is the move stop-loss to break-even feature. This feature allows you to add a certain amount of pips and maybe lock in some profit in the process. For instance, if a trade went up by 40 or 50 pips and that was where you wanted to break-even the trade without giving away everything on the trade. Say you wanted to give 30 pips on the trade and lock in an additional 20 pips, this feature of the cTrader can be used to make the process easier.
The stop-loss feature also allows you to see the potential amount you are could lose in a transaction. This would guide you in making the right decisions in the course of your trade.
This is one feature that a lot of traders tend to take for granted, especially with regards to risk assessment in trading. cTrader allows you to effectively monitor risks, and it even comes with a comments feature that allows you to leave small notes to yourself after placing a trade to know where your stop-loss is and why you’re putting it there.
These little things make you a better trader in the long run. More so due to the fact that you can carry out proper reviews of your trades at the end of a designated period. Although some traders keep notes in separate places, keeping it all together in one place makes it much easier to keep tabs on these notes over time.
Better Charting Options
Another amazing feature offered by cTrader is the inclusion of several better charting options that come in different ways. You can now detach a chart when using the desktop version. Detaching a chart allows you to view it in a separate window. This can be used in case you want to especially focus on a particular trade.
Interestingly, this feature has been quite underestimated, although it is a feature that is used even is stock trading platforms. However, MT4 does not offer this option. This is another edge of using cTrader over MT4.
The feature is applicable in offices or for individuals that use widescreen monitors or multiple screens at the same time as it can help place particular trades in focus. This means you no longer have to log in on multiple accounts to view different charts. The feature also gives users the ability to select all types of charts, including dot charts, which are not available on MT4.
Better Market Timeframes
This is another feature most users love about cTrader. Irrespective of whether you are a 15-minute trader or otherwise, you can now effectively plan your timeframes with cTrader. So, you break down the total amount of time you’d like to spend trading into smaller schedules. cTrader also allows you to keep tabs on the different technicals that occur in these timeframes.
So, If you have a daily chart, for instance, you can be more efficient with the timeframes by breaking it down into three eight-hour charts. What you would see in this instance is three different markets opens.
This is quite important considering you can monitor market actions for that particular timeframe in your region. If you trade in the New York market, for instance, you are aware of the timely trends in the region by closely monitoring the charts in your timeframe. So cTrader removes all the noise and allows you to focus on the things that really matter in checking your charts.
This feature was not this elaborate in the MT4 software. The best exotic chart you could get was a thirty-minute chart.
cTrader is, however, easier to customize with respect to timeframes.
Detach Window
The detach window is also very nice, particularly with respect to being able to select a lot of features at once. You can select templates easily and zoom in and out easily. You can also check out your trends, oscillators, volatility, and being able to change colours very easily with one click, unlike is obtained in MT4, which is not as flexible with all these options.
Carrying out some of these actions on MT4 requires going through several processes, making it less efficient with respect to time. cTrader, however, allows you to save a lot of time, making your work more efficient with better charting options.

Depth of Market Functionality

Talking about the depth of market functionality, cTrader offers a lot of information that allows you to flow through and see different indicators of market depth. You can check out surrounding prices and the number of orders. You can also easily monitor changes in the market.
There are different perceptions of the depth of the market, and while there are different ways to perceive the depth of the market, cTRader offers a chance to view the highs and lows with respect to the current price making it easy to capture the depth of the market at just one glance, making this an amazing feature.
Being able to view what is going on in the market throughout the day is a vital part of stock trading and also integral to the currency market, but somehow, this feature is not available in the Metatrader 4 software. This is another advantage of cTrader.
The feature is important to understand what other traders are doing and the type of volume around a trader per annum considering that prior to this type of software, there was no way to gain insight into the volume that was around without the right plugins, which can sometimes make your view clumsy.
cTrader gives you all the information you need very quickly in a simple interface. On a currency, you can check the maximum and minimum trade volume.

Trade Statistics

You can also check out your trade statistics on trade orders, checking profit factors, and several other things. So, if an account is 500 to 1, you can see it on cTrader if you’ve got 301 or 201. It would appear nicely in a small window. This is a feature you don’t just get on MT.
Sometimes to get information in Metatrader, you have to go through the rigorous process of going through symbols, then selecting the currency you want and checking all the information you want from the properties panel.
These long processes are one of the reasons why more people are beginning to move from MT4 to cTrader. It’s much easier to have all the information you need at your fingertips. Why use up to five clicks to open a window when you can do it in just one or two. Most users just prefer the easier way of doing things.
If Google, Amazon, and other big companies around the world are trying to make life easier for their users, then it’s understandable if forex traders want some of that too. This is why it is not surprising that about 49% of x clients’ accounts have open positions to the south side and Euro, and 51% have the buy-side.

So, really there’s no heavy bias either way, but sometimes, you will see heavy biases on certain currencies. This is why if you click the US dollar-yen, you will notice a little bit more to the buy-side. A lot of people are bullish on the US dollar in this particular pair. This comparison feature is also available in the MT4 software but is more difficult to use.
Another important point to note is that although a lot of currencies are available straight away, and you see them available on Metatrader4, not a lot of people are aware. However, cTrader allows you to see new pairs even if they are not tradable yet.
Another major turnoff with Metatrader is that the boxes don’t look really modern, especially when compared to cTrader. cTrader allows you to view currency pairs without having to go on a search mission.
So, if you’re planning on going along with the Euro it is very, it is very beneficial to know what the other currency pairs, especially the cross-currency pairs, are doing without having to search.
People opening accounts or opening trades using cTrader also get to see information on the daily highs and lows and even the percentages mark-up or down. Metatrader 4, however, doesn’t provide these things. It is these features that make life easy for traders.

Reviewing Trades

If you can, it is recommended that you review your trade every two weeks or at most on a monthly basis. The review should involve a thorough assessment of everything you did right and possible mistakes you might have made over the review period.
You should also assess if you are making any profit from your trades. You should assess the winning trades and losing trades and know how to make your choices. This is where adding comments can help. cTrader also offers a number of other features that make it easier to review than when using Metatrader4.

Common Mistakes People Make When Setting Up cTrader Accounts
cTrader ID login
As earlier mentioned, a lot of users make mistakes at this point. So, to fully enjoy cTrader, you should first login with your ID. Once you have done this, you can then go on too long in via mobile if you have an Android phone or an Apple iPhone.
All you have to do is download the X cTrader app, then login to your X software first through the web trader or the desktop trader, then you should be able to access a feature that will allow you to get the login details for your mobile.
Once you have successfully done this, you should also be able to successfully send yourself email alerts. For instance, if you have a Euro trade going on, and you want to set up alerts, you only have to log in, and you can set up the email alerts easily. This is a major plus with the cTrader software as email alerts are not easily set up on the Metatrader software.
Get started with the cTrader software today to explore some of the amazing features of the software. You can start out with a demo and then move on to the main software. As mentioned earlier, one of the fantastic features of cTrader is that you get tutorial videos to start with. These videos would walk you through all the basics of the software and how you can fully explore these features in your trade.
Apart from its simple yet modern outlook, cTrader offers traders a wide range of functions from giving you the necessary information to guide making decisions on trade to giving you the right monitoring tools which are much easier to use when compared to what you would obtain with Metatrader 4. As a trader, get started with the cTrader software today to take your trading to the next level.

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