Come to find out, there is a way to undo it.  In fact, you can “undelete” the last five charts.  I knew there had to be a way to do it, but I just never took the time to figure it out.

Here is how to do it:

I hope that helps you the next time you close a chart by mistake.

Shortcut keys while in full screen mode. Be sure that the windows are activated in normal mode if you want to be able to use them in full screen mode.

• Ctrl+M – Market Watch
• Ctrl+N – Navigator
• Ctrl+T – Terminal
• Ctrl+D – Data Window

I found this very useful, I hope you do too. Keep an eye out for more MT4 Tutorials!

UPDATE: (4/25/11): The free option is not working anymore.  The only way to setup text message alerts is by following the instructions in this post:

In a previous post, I showed you how to setup Metatrader text message alerts for free.  Now before you click over there, I want you to understand that if you are serious about your trading, free is NOT the best solution.

Sure, in most situations free is great!   Believe me, I am all about free.  As much as possible, I try to find free or inexpensive products whenever I can.

Free is Not Always Best

However, sometimes you really do have to pay and this is one such case.  Why?

First of all, there was only one free email provider that I found that would allow the kind of connection that Metatrader needs to send text messages to my mobile phone.  Therefore if that service ever decides to stop allowing this access, you will not be getting your trade alerts.

Secondly, since the email server you are using is free, the hosting company has no real motivation to solve issues in a timely manner or provide good customer service.

Therefore, in this post I’m going to show you how I setup Metatrader Text Message Alerts.  Although it will cost a few bucks a month, it is well worth it.

If You Do Not Have a Website

If you already have a website or blog, then skip to the next section for further instructions.  If you don’t, then you need to sign up for some sort of email or website hosting.

I’ll be honest, I have not completely researched all the options out there.  Quite frankly, I don’t have the time and even if I found something cheaper, it would only be by a couple bucks a month.

So it’s not worth obsessing over a few dollars, in my opinion.  That time could be better spent backtesting or logging your trades.

I can only tell you what I have tried and this works for me. It is affordable and has been solid over the three years that I have been using it.  Just keep in mind that there are other ways to do it, but this is what I know.

I have been using HostGator for website hosting and email.  Their plans are very affordable and their customer service is excellent.

I have also worked out a deal with them where you can get an extra $9.94 off any hosting package that you buy.  It’s not much because their prices are already low but every little bit helps.   Use the coupon code:

TRADINGHEROES

Just get a simple “Hatchling Plan.” Click here to sign up for an account.

Here is a quick tutorial video on what to do:

Once you do that, you can move on to the next section below.

If You Already Have a Website

If you have an existing website or blog, then the rest is easy.  Just setup a new email address.  Here is a quick video on how to do it in HostGator:

If you have a different host, it is probably very similar.

Now Setup Metatrader

OK, almost done.  Now we just have to setup Metatrader. This is how you do it:

Click here to see a list of email addresses to send text messages to different mobile phone carriers.

Almost Done

Now test it out:

That’s it! Pretty simple huh?

If you want to learn how to create an inexpensive dedicated Metatrader computer that is always on and will send you text messages 24 hours a day check out this article.

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By “clean chart” I mean a starting point where you can start adding indicators. There may be times when you want to look at a chart without indicators or perhaps you want to try a new strategy and need to start over.

You can also use this video to save any chart template that you need. Templates make it easy to get you up an running on any pair with a couple clicks.

Since then, I have become significantly more sophisticated (cough, cough) and I thought that I would do a video for you because that may be easier to understand for some people.

I know I like to see things in action myself.  Anyway, this is what it can do for you…

Sometimes when you “pull a Fib,” you still have to go back with the crosshair to see what the exact price of a certain Fib line is.  For example in this picture, I labeled the 38.2 retracement with the price level of 1.53686.

You may not want to do this with every Fib line because it might clutter up the charts, but being able to see the actual price of key Fib levels at a glance can be a huge time saver.  This is especially true when you are in the middle of a trade and may not have the time to check the Fib levels on several different currency pairs.

Therefore, I created a quick video on how to do this.  It is very simple once you know what to do.  I guess that goes for a lot of things huh?

If you have any other Metatrader questions that you would like answered, feel free to leave a comment below and I will create a video on how to do it.

Hope you are trading well!

Sometimes, you go back in the history of a chart to see what has happened in the past few days.  However, if you want to get back to the current bar quickly, it doesn’t always happen.  When you press the Auto Scroll button, it can take some time before Metatrader actually does auto scroll.

It can be a little annoying, especially when you are trying to get back to the current price action to trade.  This could even cost you some money and I want to avoid that at all cost.

Here is a quick and easy way that I discovered to solve this problem.   I hope you find it useful!

If you find these tips useful, let me know by leaving a comment below and I will continue this series.  Feel free to leave a Metatrader question and I will be happy to create a video on how to do it.

UPDATE: (4/7/11): The free option is not working anymore.  The only way to setup text message alerts is by following the instructions in this post.

How do you know when the GBPCHF is close to entering a limit order when you are away from your computer?  Set up an alarm that sends a text message to your mobile phone, of course!

But how do you do that?  There are two ways to do it, one is free, the other is paid.

What are the pros and cons?

The free service is free and we all know that free is best!  But when things are free, they may not stay free forever.  The only problem with a free service is that people may abuse it or a lot of people may start to use it and they may take it away or start charging, sometimes without notice.  This could be disastrous for you as a trader because you may not get an alert to check your trade when it is going against you.

So what is the bad part about paying for a service?  Well, it costs money.  However, in the next part of this two part series, I will show you how to use a paid service to ensure that you will get your text message alerts. If you are consistently making money trading, then you should invest a little money to be sure you are properly updated.

If you are just starting out or you are trading live but your strategy does not absolutely require you to be updated with text messages, then the free option is good enough.  However, if it crucial that you get updates on how your trade is going when you step away from the computer, you need to get a paid service eventually.

Here is how you set it up with the free service:

First, you need to sign up for a free email account at GMX.com.   This is the only free email service that I know of that will work with Metatrader 4 as of the writing of this post.  If you know of others that you have tried and work for sure, leave a comment below and let everyone know about it.

Just create an account and write down your email address and password.  You will never need to actually check this email account, you just need it to use their server to send the text messages via email.

Websites like Yahoo, Google, Hotmail and the others will not work because they require a secure connection to use the SMTP server (a type of  server used to send email).  Since Metatrader 4 does not have an option to use a secure connection, the other email sites will refuse the connection.

After you have created an account, you need to setup Metatrader.

Go to the Tools menu and select Options.

Then select the Email tab in the window that pops up and follow these setting (click to enlarge).

Click above to enlarge

Just substitute your email address for your-email and your password.  You will also need the email address of your phone to send text messages to it.  There are many sites that list the email address for your phone provider, click here to see one.

Enter your 10 digit phone number followed by the specific ending for your mobile phone carrier in the To field.

Then click the Test button to send a text message to your phone.  You should get a text message in a few seconds.  If that doesn’t work, then double check your settings.  You can go to View –> Terminal in the menu at the top to see the Terminal window.  Then click on the Journal tab to see if your text messages are getting rejected.  If all else fails, check with your phone carrier to double check that their email to text message service is working.

So that is all there is to it…pretty easy right?  Stay tuned for the next part of this series where I show you what I use to send text messages from Metatrader.

UPDATE (4/7/2011): A reader mentioned that he tried this free option and it stopped working after 3 or 4 times. GMX has probably caught on and could be limiting SMTP use on their servers.  If so, then the only option is to use paid hosting click here to learn how to do it.