Placing your first trade
Day 07 of 26 · 8 min read · By DT Terminal
Placing a trade means choosing the instrument, the direction, the size and where you are wrong before you click. This lesson walks through placing a trade in MetaTrader 5 step by step, with a stop loss and take profit on it from the start.
Unlock the full lesson in the app
Worked examples, the quiz and the interactive tools are in the app. Free account.
Trade on a demo account first
A demo account is a real trading account with simulated money: live prices, the same order window, and nothing you lose is real. Make your first mistakes there: the wrong volume, a stop on the wrong side, a buy when you meant a sell.
The goal is not to make money. It is to make placing, editing and closing a trade automatic, so with real money on the line your attention goes on the decision, not the buttons.
| Demo | Live | |
|---|---|---|
| Prices and charts | The live market | The live market |
| Order window | The same MT5 New Order window | The same MT5 New Order window |
| Fills | Usually at the price you see | Can slip in fast markets and around news |
| A losing trade | A number on a screen | Money you earned |
| In your record | Labelled demo, never counted as verified | Counts toward a verified record |
Setting up MT5
MetaTrader 5MetaTrader 5 (MT5) is one of the most widely used platforms for forex and gold. Do each step on the demo account until you can do it without looking.
Open a demo account.
File, then Open an Account, then a demo. Set the balance you plan to trade live.
Find your symbols.
Open Market Watch with Ctrl M and add symbols with Ctrl U. Use the exact name your broker shows.
Check the contract specification.
Right-click a symbol, then Specification. Note the contract size, minimum volume and volume step.
Open a chart and set it up.
Drag the symbol onto the chart area. Alt 2 switches to candles.
Go deeper
The shortcuts are for the MT5 desktop app on Windows; on other versions the menus are the same but some keys differ.
Demo balance. Set the starting balance to the amount you plan to trade with for real, so every number you see means something.
Symbols. Right-click Market Watch and choose Symbols to add EURUSD, XAUUSD and the rest. Brokers often add a suffix, like EURUSD.m or XAUUSDm.
Specification. The contract size is 100,000 units a lot on EURUSD at most brokers, often 100 ounces on gold. Your position size depends on these figures.
Chart. Change the timeframe with the M1 to MN buttons on the toolbar.
Placing a trade in MT5, step by step
Mark your levels.
Insert, Objects, Lines, Horizontal Line. Mark them before you think about an entry.
Place the order, with the stop and target filled in.
Press F9, pick market or pending, type the lots, and fill in Stop Loss and Take Profit before you click.
Manage the trade.
In the Trade tab (Ctrl T), drag the SL and TP lines or double-click the position.
Close it.
Click the × on the position, or let the stop or target close it.
Connect the account to your record.
Trades then sync into your journal on their own, labelled demo.
Interactive tool
Order ticket practice
This interactive tool runs in the app, with your own numbers.
Then place it on a moving chart
EURUSD and place Example 01 from the next chapter, stop and target set. Play until one closes it.Go deeper
Levels. Mark the swing highs and lows you are watching first, so the levels decide the trade and not the other way round.
The order. Check the symbol at the top of the New Order window. Market Execution (Instant Execution on some accounts) fills now; a pending order (Buy Limit, Sell Limit, Buy Stop, Sell Stop) waits for its price. Never place first and add the stop after.
Managing. Dragging the lines needs Show trade levels on in Tools, Options, Charts. The × sits at the right end of the position in the Trade tab, and a pending order that has not filled is removed the same way.
Connecting. Once the account is connected, your record never depends on remembering to log a trade.
The backtester takes market orders and the same four pending orders as MT5, so it is a safe place to rehearse the ticket.
Use the order ticket above to practise step 06: fill in a ticket and see which order MT5 would place, what a stopped out trade would cost, and anything that should stop you clicking.
Your first order, with the numbers
One order from plan to ticket, on a $10,000 demo risking 1% a trade, so 1R is $100.
Worked example
Example 01: A buy limit on EURUSD, with the stop and target set
The worked example, with every number walked through, is in the app.
Moving the stop to breakeven
Worked example
Example 02: Moving the stop to breakeven
The worked example, with every number walked through, is in the app.
DT Terminal ChartsEURUSD · H1What a first week on demo looks like
One example first week on the same $10,000 demo. Every trade has a stop. Wednesday has no trade, and that is a result too: no setup met the plan.
Worked example
Example 03: Six trades, graded by the plan before the money
The worked example, with every number walked through, is in the app.
Let your demo week build itself
Go deeper
Write up trade 5: what you saw, why you clicked, what the plan says about news.
You do not have to copy a week like this into a spreadsheet. Connect the demo account once and every trade lands in your Trade Log by itself: entry, exit, size and result, read from the broker. That leaves you the part only you can do, which is the review.
When to move to a live account
Demo has no end date. Move to a live account when your demo record shows you follow your own plan, not when a good week makes you feel ready. Tick off what your record already shows.
Interactive tool
Go live checklist
This interactive tool runs in the app, with your own numbers.
Real money feels different, even at the same size. Many traders keep live risk per trade the same as demo, or lower, until the live record matches. If the rules slip once money is real, go back to demo rather than push through.
Check yourself
Quick review · 0 of 0
Four questions on placing and managing your first trade. If one trips you up, reread that section.