MetaTrader 4 brokers in the UK

In the UK, ActivTrades, Capital.com, CMC Markets, FxPro, IC Markets, IG, Pepperstone plus Vantage all let you trade on MetaTrader 4. Most of these MT4 brokers also provide MetaTrader 5 and TradingView. CMC Markets pairs MT4 with TradingView plus its own web and mobile apps. Want cTrader as well? FxPro, IC Markets and Pepperstone supply it alongside MetaTrader.

MetaQuotes software isn't supported at all by some other UK firms. Take eToro and XTB, which run only their own in-house platforms, and Spreadex, which offers its own platform and TradingView.

Trading with these firms means using derivatives, not buying physical currency. A CFD means a contract for difference: you trade on price movements instead of owning the underlying asset. Aside from IC Markets, each UK MT4 firm offers CFDs and spread betting for forex, plus a forex demo account to practise with before risking real money.

In 2000, MetaQuotes was founded as a business-to-business developer of financial markets software. A brokerage account isn't opened with MetaQuotes itself. The developer licenses its software to brokers worldwide instead.

FX Charts was MetaQuotes' first product in 2000 and provided charting and dealing tools for currency traders. A platform then introduced the MQL programming language, allowing users to run automated strategies. MetaTrader refers to trading robots as Expert Advisors. These automated programs examine prices and carry out trades for you.

MetaQuotes added futures trading and mobile apps in 2003 with MetaTrader 3 CE and MetaTrader for Palm. MetaTrader 4 came out in July 2005, pairing a distributed architecture with the MQL4 IDE development environment so retail traders could put together trading robots and run them on their own computers.

In 2010, MetaQuotes launched MetaTrader 5 so it could serve markets beyond currency pairs. Where MT4 focused on forex and MQL4, MT5 covers several asset classes, including forex, stock exchanges and futures, on desktop, web and mobile. In 2010 it also introduced the MQL5 programming language along with the MQL5.community portal, where free source code is available, more than 2500 algorithmic apps listed in the Market can be bought or rented, signals can be copied, and a virtual server can be rented for 24/7 operation.

Your trades and orders work differently on the newer terminal. It supports 2 ways of accounting for positions: hedging and netting. Hedging lets you hold several trades open on one market in either direction. Netting, by contrast, combines those trades into one position for exchange markets. There's Market Depth in the terminal, plus an economic calendar and live financial news. At every price level, Market Depth shows the total volume of waiting buy and sell orders.

For trade execution, MT5 includes 2 market order types, 6 pending order types, 2 stop-orders and a trailing stop. On MT5, charting tools differ between the desktop program and mobile apps used on iPhone, iPad and Android.

More than 80 technical indicators and analytical tools come built into the desktop terminal, ahead of any custom MQL5 additions.

MetaQuotes never receives your money. Applying for a trading account puts your agreement with an FCA-regulated forex broker based in the UK, and the money you deposit stays with that broker's UK entity. We list each firm's spread pricing, retail client loss rate, minimum deposit and Financial Services Register number, so you can check who holds your funds.

After setting up your account, your broker sends login credentials for its trade servers. On your computer, phone or web browser, the MetaTrader app connects straight to those broker servers, where it receives stock prices and currency quotes and executes your trades. Your broker runs the server feed, so your spreads, account rules and available markets come down to the broker you pick, not the MetaTrader software.