Is MetaTrader worth the trouble?

I've read a lot the posts here and found lots of wisdom. My question is this: Is MetaTrader a good trading/teaching tool? I see a lot of people looking for the perfect indicator or system to help them trade. Does MetaTrader take you away from developing your own style of trading, does it have you constantly searching for the next EA. How many people truely follow their EA blindly? Does it encourage good or bad trading skills?

Tools are neither good or bad, it is how one uses them... Metatrader is just a powerfull charting tool and nothing more...

And it's free too!

Metatrader is an outstanding charting package. Be aware of anyone that tries to get you to subscribe to their charts.

Do you need to trade with a broker who uses Metatrader to get a data feed?

NO...............use a demo account with FXDD, it doesn't expire!

no.

if you actually want to trade using it, then yes.

Not only MT4 is free, the support you get from this forum is great.

as a trader you have to find a system in which you feel confortable trading. metatrader is one of the simplest platforms out there. i have been using it for the last 4 years and i wouldnt trade to any other....develope your trading system and apply it to your favorite trading platform/

i don't use complicated trading system either, it usually good when the trend is noticed.

if you make your own E.A. you need more skill in following the market than average trader.

I've use numerous trading platform available and i find MT to be easy to use. I myself use chart to set up trade, with MT you don't have to be constantly connected to use the chart while other trading platform i try required connection. But it all depend on you which trading platform is easy for you to use. For me, top mark for METATRADER

A true MASTER is one with his WEAPON!

I like MT4, too. It's easy-to-use, stable, up-to-date. And most important for me: you can code your EAs in a nice, flexible coding language. However, you really should be careful about backtesting.

Correction....

You should beware of anyone that wants you to subscribe to a charting package that uses the MetaQuotes platform. There are many charting platforms other than MetaQuotes that are outstanding and do charge a fee.

If I may ask, what do the the initials E.A. stand for?

Electronic enemA. It basically makes your money flow smoother and faster.

Yeah, and some times straight down the toilet too.

It actually stands for Expert Advisor.

EA's are a step above signaling services.
difference being, with EA's you have the option to know exactly how those buy sell orders are triggered.

if you buy a black box system (i.e. you get signals, but you have no access to the code nor how those orders are created) you are basically getting a signaling service.

to rely on an EA implies that you can be profitable using only technical analysis. this can be done since there ARE traders who only use technical analysis but these traders are successful because they are discretionary.

today's computer language is not advanced enough to let EA's make a discretionary decision, let alone EA's you build with metatrader. you can try to build your own trading platform based on neural networks or genetic algorithms but even so, it would be considerably slower then a human being.

i've seen EA's which avoid news hours, trade only on certain time of the day etc,. but that's not what being discretionary is all about.

you may ask:
how does some EA's produce wonderful results then?

in order for current EA's to work with full efficiency, you would need to create a newer one to fit the changing market cycle. markets are dynamic and very much unpredictable. certain market cycles may last for a few days to a week, while others may last for month. by the time you are finished creating a new model, the cycle maybe over and your EA will become useless.

if you do find an EA with good results, you'll find that they will work for a limited time and with certain currency pairs only. this is because the EA is tuned to work only with certain patterns and that currency pair happened to have fit that pattern.

the very language EA's are written on is based on context-free grammar and therefore is limited. the very processors we are using now is incapable of handling such decisions in a timely manner even if we had advanced on programming language.

quantum computers may make such trading platforms possible, but untill then, you need to wise up and learn how to trade for yourself.

current EA's are nothing more then an indicator with functions to buy and sell.

perhaps i am wrong and there exists a successful fancy indicator, but i guarantee, it's owner will not sell it on ebay for $1000 or even $10 a piece.

Haha!