AlexSmith 
Posted on October 31, 2019 by marketing Best MT5 Shortcuts for Speedy Trade Execution in Challenges — Among the most important tasks to perform while utilizing a Trading Platform during live markets and competitions is to Execute Orders very fast.
As we all know in the world of proprietary trading challenges time and efficiency can be everything that separates which traders fail and which pass. The MT5 trading platform (MetaTrader 5) is already famous for having all the bells and whistles in a speedy interface, but some traders, particularly swing traders tend to miss out its time-saving shortcuts and ease of use features which can slice down important seconds. Precious seconds, especially if the market quickly changes and you are held to strict rules of a prop firm.
This guide is going to take you through the MT5 shortcuts you should be using and how to optimize your workflow to minimize those trade times, cut out manual errors, improve your precision- all critical things that will help you in passing prop firm challenges.
1. One-Click Trading
Why It Matters:
The one-click trading is fast selling of the trading by a button on the MT5 trading platform. This way you can drop and drag buy/sell orders right from the chart or the Market watch window without opening an extra order dialog box.
How to Enable It:
1. Go to Tools → Options.
2. Navigate to the Trade tab.
3. Tick the box for 'One Click Trading' and you will be presented with a disclaimer which you should accept.
This is good for swing trading so that you will see a setup during your periodic chart reviews and if you want to get into it immediately at market price without overthinking, this feature could be useful.
2. Keyboard Shortcuts for Order Management
By memorizing the hotkey shortcuts present by default in MT5 reduces mouse clicks up to 50%. A few of the helpful ones are :
- F9: Open New Order window.
- F8: Preferences of the chart( fast re-templating/ re-coloring).
- Ctrl + T: To show/hide Terminal windows (you can open account history, exposure and active trades from here quickly designed to mimic professional web tools).
- Ctrl +M: Market watch on the screen.
- Ctrl + N: Open/Close Navigator for fast switching between accounts and indicators.
Also, they are very useful for prop firm challenges where you have to open trades and manage trades while always respecting strict drawdown and position sizing rules.
3. Templating and Profiles for a Fast Setup
One of the things you might need to do before a swing trade is to look at more than one time frame and even multiple currency pairs. Instead of having to load the indicators and chart settings every time you open a chart manually, you can create templates and profiles.
A template will save a particular chart arrangement (candlestick colors, indicators, etc).
A profile is a complete workspace with multiple charts and their timeframes. Tip: As soon as you save it, your templates will appear in the template list and load faster by simply right-clicking on your chart. You don't have to set up everything again and again!
4. Fast Chart Navigation
Speed is not only in placing the orders but also in getting your trading set up quickly. Downloading MT5 of the trading platform you can do anyway:
- The neat thing is that you will have multiple ways to jump between charts right there.
- Alt + 1,, 2, 3 → Switch between bar, candlestick and line chart view — enable this on a call with us.
- Page Up/Page Down → Quickly move through historical data.
- Click on Symbol → Enter Some symbol name in the Search bar of Market Watch to open a new chart instantly.
For swing trading, this is even more interesting because it allows you to quickly switch from scanning EUR/USD on the H4 to GBP/JPY on the D1 without any time loss!
5. Hotkeys for Closing Trades
There will be those times in prop firm challenges that if you are not exiting right there and then, you could be giving away profit or having losses expand over their limits. How MT5 helps you to get out of trades quickly:
- Added #4 in the following: Right-click on the position → Close Position.
- Alternatively if one-click trading is on, immediately click the close "X" next to the trade. Given how a one-second delay can cause slippage in fast-moving markets, knowing this shortcut is critical.
6. Setting Price Alerts Efficiently
OK not watching the price every tick of way but still trade with the levels swing trading Use Alerts Rather Than Checking Charts Manually
- Open Terminal → Alerts tab.
- Right-click → Create.
- Select price level, Expiry and Alert Sound.
Tip (shortcut): You can draw a horizontal line on the chart, right click it and set an alert, much faster than navigating through all those previous menus.
7. Speeding Up Lot Size Adjustments
Given that many prop firm challenges cap out how big you can trade lots.
- Tool > Option → Trade tab,
- Default Volume to your average swing trade size.
This speeds up our process and also prevents you from expanding any larger position size mistakenly.
8. Using “Trading from the Chart”
You can drag and drop pending orders right on the chart, to visually change them:
- To adjust the stop-loss or take-profit simply left-click on the order line and drag.
- Swiping up will set a pending buy order and swiping down — a sell one. This process is quicker and more intuitive, provided you are a visual trader than punching in numbers inside a dialog box.
9. Customizing the Toolbar
With MT5, you can also personalize toolbars to display functions according to what you use the most on a daily basis. Remove unnecessary icons and add only these:
- New Order
- Periodicity (timeframe buttons)
- Templates
- Indicators
These ease the pain of flipping through buttons and mess up your workflow.
10. Practice in the Strategy Tester
Although the primary use of Strategy Tester is backtesting, you can also train your shortcut skills in a practice mode. Execute your trades quickly as if you practiced this scenario over and over again.
Final Thoughts
Well basically, for the game that was designed particularly around that and these sorts of challenges it is just as important to be fast with hitting buttons, accurate and following the instructions. There are so many shortcuts and improvements in the MT5 trading platform that, if properly run, will make you stay ahead of your competition. These shortcuts are perfect for swing traders who have a longer holding period, but still want to move quickly when the time comes without having to scroll through menus. Pairing these shortcuts with strict risk management and a simple strategy can help you execute trades more quickly, and overall better – increasing your likelihood of making it through the prop firm challenges, and continuing to succeed as a funded trader.