By lun neh 
You might think that trading gold in MetaTrader 4 is more complicated than Forex trading. But the truth is, the procedure is quite easy, both for entering and exiting from the market. The procedure in trading gold is somewhat alike to trading currencies. For this, there are a good number of Forex traders who are also trading gold, thanks to the comfort that the MT4 platform provides.
Different details on gold trading vary from one broker to another, the same goes for the margin levels. There are also FX brokers that have different margin requirements, unlike the other brokers. But then, the basic concept of trading gold thru the MT4 platform is similar to trading forex. What matters here is how you open and close your trades. You must develop a strong trading strategy to be able to succeed in this field.
What Are The Options Offered on MetaTrader 4
Traders in the MT4 are offered two kinds of gold that they can trade – Spot and Exchange. So, what are the differences between these two options?
Spot – this term refers to the spot price which can be found in the commodity exchange. Most of the time, it is in dollars and people talking to it mostly refers to the price of gold in the market.
Exchange – this involves gold and a currency like they are a currency pair. For instance, XAU is the symbol of gold and EUR is euros. In the MT4 platform, it would appear as XAUEUR.
How To Trade It?
Located at the left side of the MT4 screen, you will see a panel named “Market Watch” that has all the instruments that are offered by the Forex broker. But take note, not all the instruments offered by your broker are listed at the Market Watch. Only the most frequently used instruments are seen here. You may not see Gold on the list. So if you want to see this instrument listed on the platform, you should right-click on the uppermost portion of the screen with the name ‘symbol’. Then tap ‘show all’ which is located at the menu. Continue scrolling until you find the option that you like.
You can also customize the appearance of your chart just like with currency pairs. There are also tools available for technical analysis. These tools are very handy to use.
How To Open a Trade
After analyzing the market, you can now start trading on the MetaTrader 4 platform. The first thing you should do is to right-click on the chart then go to the menu. Select ‘trading’ then click ‘New Order’.
Other than that, if you want to open the chart to start trading, you can simply tap the F9 key on the keyboard. A trade panel will then open up. From this panel, you can choose to take profit levels, set the stop loss, choose a trading volume, or set a trade order when a certain level is reached. Then, you can click ‘buy’ or ‘sell’ depending on the signal that you have.