Uganda — MetaTrader 5: three places to check when a figure surprises

Measured order execution — Standard

How orders actually filled when real market orders were placed on Exness’s MT5 feed — fill time, slippage and rejects by order size:

Small sample (a few round-trips per size); indicative. The same pricing engine feeds every platform the broker offers.

MetaTrader 5 (MT5) at Exness

• Three places hold the answer, and the order between them is fixed: symbol, account, own entry
• The symbol specification is read first, because every figure below it is counted in units the symbol defines
• The account properties are read second: the same symbol produces a different figure on a different account
• What was entered is read last, because an entry can only be called wrong once there is something to measure it against
• The first two places are one screen each and one look each — the cost of checking them is small enough that skipping them is never a saving
• A check stops at the place that explains the figure; there is no need to continue into the next one
• Starting at the end reproduces the surprise instead of explaining it, because the entry is re-made against the same unknown
• The place that turned out to hold the answer is worth writing down: the same figure usually surprises twice

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First place: the symbol, because it sets the units

Every figure on the screen is counted in units that belong to the instrument rather than to the screen. Until those units are read, a number has no size: the same digits mean one thing on a metal, another on an index and another again on a currency pair. This is why the specification of the symbol is opened before anything else, and why a surprising figure is very often explained there and nowhere else.

It is also the shortest of the three checks. One screen, one look, and either the figure now makes sense — in which case the other two places are never opened — or it still does not, and the check moves on with the units now known.

Second place: the account, because the same symbol reads differently on two of them

The same instrument, opened on two accounts, does not have to produce the same figure. The properties attached to the account are the second reference, and they are read second precisely because they are read against the first: what the account does to a figure is only visible once the units of the symbol are in hand.

In practice this is the place that explains the surprises that survive the first look, and it is worth reaching it with the symbol screen still fresh. Checking the account without having read the symbol produces an answer that sounds complete and is not, because the figure it explains was never measured.

Third place: what was entered, and why it is checked last

The entry is the weakest reference of the three, because checking it is partly an act of memory. Read first, it almost always passes: the number looks like the number that was meant, and the check ends with nothing found. Read last, the same entry is compared against two references that are now known, and the same look becomes decisive.

This is the whole argument for the order. The first two places answer with facts that are on screen; the third answers with a comparison, and a comparison needs both sides. Moving it to the front removes the sides and keeps the confidence.

What an inverted order costs

Starting at the end is the common route, and it has a recognisable ending: the entry is corrected, the action is repeated, and the same figure appears again. Nothing was learned, because the figure was never measured against anything — the second attempt was made against the same unknown as the first.

The reverse order also hides which place actually held the answer, and that is the part worth keeping. A figure that surprised once tends to surprise again months later; a note that says which of the three places explained it turns the second occasion into a single look instead of a repeat of the whole search.

The order, with the stop condition

1. Open the specification of the symbol and read the units the figure is counted in. If the figure now makes sense, the check is finished here.
2. If it does not, open the properties of the account the position sits on and read the same figure against them. Most of what survives the first step is settled here.
3. Only then look at what was entered, and compare it against the two references now in hand rather than against memory.
4. Write down which of the three places held the answer, next to the symbol it concerned. The next occurrence starts at that place instead of at the beginning.

The steps are a ladder with a stop, not a checklist to complete: continuing past the place that already explained the figure adds time and no information.

Three places, in the order they are opened

The order runs from what is printed on a screen to what has to be remembered, which is also the order from most reliable to least.

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