# MT5 Trade History vs MT4 - Key Differences for Journaling

> MT5 records trades differently from MT4. These differences affect how you journal and analyze performance. Here is what changed and why it matters.

**Tags:** mt5, mt4, trade-history, comparison, journaling
**URL:** https://traderjournal.app/metatrader/mt5-trade-history-vs-mt4-journaling

---


# MT5 Trade History vs MT4 - Key Differences for Journaling

If you are switching from MT4 to MT5, or you run accounts on both platforms, the differences in how trade history is recorded will affect your journaling setup. Here is what is different and what it means in practice.

---

## The Order/Deal/Position Model in MT5

MT4 uses a simple model: each trade is a single ticket that tracks from open to close. The ticket number is constant throughout the trade's life.

MT5 introduces three separate concepts:

**Orders** - instructions to open or close a position (equivalent to placing an order in the market)

**Deals** - the actual executions that result from orders (when the order fills, a deal is created)

**Positions** - the aggregate net exposure in a symbol at any point (in hedging mode, you can have multiple positions per symbol)

For journaling purposes, what matters most is the deal history, not the order history. The deal history shows the actual entry and exit executions with their prices, times, volumes, and financial results.

This is more granular than MT4 but also more complex to parse. A single MT5 trade that was partially closed twice and then fully closed appears as four deal entries rather than one trade row.

---

## Netting Accounts - The Biggest Practical Difference

In MT4, every trade has its own independent life - open at a price, close at a price, done.

In MT5 netting mode, every new order in a symbol affects the existing position. This creates a different journaling challenge: what constitutes a "trade" for analysis purposes?

For example: you buy 0.3 lots of EURUSD. Later you buy another 0.2 lots. Later you sell 0.1 lots (reducing to 0.4 lots). Later you close the remaining 0.4 lots.

In MT4, this would be multiple separate trades. In MT5 netting, it is all part of one position. Journaling this as a single "trade" requires some interpretation about the average entry price and lot size.

Trader Journal's MT5 EA handles this by tracking position-level entries and exits and reconstructing meaningful trade records for your journal.

---

## What Is the Same

Despite the structural differences, the financial data captured is identical:

- Symbol
- Direction (long/short)
- Volume (lots)
- Open and close prices
- Open and close times
- Commission (explicit in MT5, often in spread in MT4)
- Swap
- Net P&L

Your journal analytics - win rate, profit factor, drawdown, by-symbol breakdown - work exactly the same way regardless of whether the underlying data came from MT4 or MT5.

---

## Commission Visibility

MT5 often makes commission more visible than MT4. Many MT5 brokers charge a per-trade commission rather than a markup on the spread. This means you see explicit commission entries in your deal history.

MT4 brokers typically build the commission into the spread - the visible bid-ask gap is wider than the raw market spread, and the difference is the broker's revenue. There is no separate commission line.

Both result in a cost to you, but MT5's explicit commission model makes it easier to analyze your actual cost per trade.

---

For both platforms, Trader Journal provides automatic sync with the same journaling features. Download at android.traderjournal.app or ios.traderjournal.app.