By Admiral Markets
To be a successful trader, it is not enough to follow me on Twitter, Facebook or follow Admiral Markets educational and analytical section. Some things you need to learn on your own. Today, I will teach you how to read and understand your MT4 trading statements and other important analytical tools that you might need when trading. Understanding trading statements and history is extremely useful for those who trade multiple instruments and want to see how each of them performs. Another great use of it is that you can test dozens of strategies on the same MT4 and see their merits and flaws.
In order to read and use the MT4 trading statement, follow these steps:
The Account History tab is located at the bottom of MetaTrader screen as shown in the screenshot below.
Source: Nenad Kerkez T (personal)
Looking from left to right, we can see several tabs with separate information. All account information and trade history is found in the Terminal window at the bottom of your MT4 screen within the Account History tab. The tab shows a complete breakdown of all the orders you have placed, including date, time, type, size, instrument, price at open, take-profit and stop-loss levels, price and time of close, swap fees, and profit. Once your trades have been closed, your account history is stored in the server.
Free Reports:
Additionally, you can opt to see the following tabs: Commissions, Taxes, and Comments.
Commissions represent the cost charged by the broker company for performing a trade operation. Taxes show taxes for performing trade operations, while Comments can be entered on different trades. Comments are stored and can be entered only at position opening or placing an order. The comment cannot be changed when an order or a position are being modified. Also, your brokes can enter comments about a specific trade in this field.
Source: Nenad Kerkez T (personal)
The report is just as important showing the essential data of your trading account.
Source: Nenad Kerkez T (personal)
Deposit/Withdrawal is the total result of deposits and withdrawals to/from the account over the reporting period (if no deposits or withdrawals are made, Deposit/Withdrawal will read 0).
Credit Facility shows the credit available.
Closed Trade P/L shows the total profits or losses from transactions closed during the period.
Floating P/L shows the total floating profits and losses on all transactions open on a client’s account at the time the report is generated.
Margin shows the total margin for all open transactions at the time the report is generated.
Balance is the total financial result of all completed trading and non-trading transactions on the trading account at the time the report is generated.
Equity is the total financial result of all completed trading and non-trading transactions as well as open positions on the trading account at the time the report is generated, calculated using the following formula: Equity = Balance +Credit + Floating Profit – Floating Loss.
Free Margin shows the funds available to open a new position at the time the report is generated, calculated using the following formula: Free Margin = Equity -Margin.
In addition to regular trading reports, MT4 allows you to generate a detailed report, which also includes additional information about your trading account, allowing you to analyse your trading performance more thoroughly. Detailed report will show you these fields in the trading statement. Right click the Account History tab and select Save as Detailed Report.
Except for standard MT4 statements, it is important to keep in mind other essential factors that can be found in some advanced analytical tools, e.g., myfxbook.com. The information might help you find additional flaws and merits of your system, money management, and trading style.
These analytical factors are:
Profit Factor shows how many times the gross profit (sum of all winning trades) exceeds the gross loss (sum of all losing trades). The higher the value, the better.
Standard Deviation is a statistical measure of volatility. It shows how much variation or dispersion there is from the mean (expectancy).
Sharpe Ratio is used to characterise how well the return of an asset compensates the investor for the risk taken. The higher the value, the better.
Z-Score (Probability) is used for calculating the ability of a trading system to generate wins and losses in streaks. It enables us to see if the streaks generated are of a random pattern or not.
Expectancy tells you what you can expect to make (win or lose) on every trade.
Arithmetic Average Holding Period (AHPR) is the average holding period return.
Geometric Average Holding Period (GHPR) is the geometric holding period return.
It is important to know that you should try to keep expectancy positive, while analysing the AHPR and GHPR data is extremely important for traders who want to use compounding.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comment section below!
Cheers and safe trading,
Nenad
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Article by Admiral Markets
Source: Understanding Trading Statements and Related Data
Admiral Markets is a leading online provider, offering trading with Forex and CFDs on stocks, indices, precious metals and energy.