Ask any driving instructor about first lessons. Few learners crash into a wall. Most switch on the wipers when they meant to signal a turn.

Trading platforms work the same way. Beginners rarely lose money on day one because of a bad idea. They lose money because they clicked Sell instead of Buy, typed 10 lots instead of 0.10, or closed the wrong position in a hurry. Every one of these mistakes comes from not knowing the dashboard.

Last chapter, you learned where a stop loss and a take profit belong. Today you’ll learn where to type them. We’ll walk through MetaTrader 5 first, then MatchTrader, the two platforms available on Moneta Funded. By the end of this lesson, you’ll know how to log in, find your markets, set up a chart, place an order with a stop loss and take profit, and read your balance, equity and margin. You’ll also fix two settings which cause more accidental trades than any market crash.

Grab your laptop. Class is in session.

Part 1: Which Platform Should You Pick?

Both platforms show live market prices, and both run under the same challenge rules on Moneta Funded. The difference sits in how you like to work.

MetaTrader 5, or MT5, is the industry veteran. Thousands of brokers offer MT5, so tutorials, indicators and expert advisors are everywhere. The desktop version gives you the most control, with dozens of built-in indicators and 21 chart timeframes.

MatchTrader is the newer, lighter option. You trade in a web browser with nothing to install, and the charts come from TradingView, the charting tool many traders already use for analysis. The whole layout fits on one screen, which suits beginners and anyone who switches between laptop and phone.

One practical rule decides for some of you. MT5 isn’t available to Moneta Funded clients from the USA and Canada. If you live there, MatchTrader is your platform.

Still unsure? Click around both for ten minutes and pick the one which feels comfortable. Your strategy matters far more than your software.

Part 2: Logging In to MT5

After you buy a challenge, your dashboard shows three details: a login number, a password and a server name. Write them down somewhere safe.

On MT5 desktop, open the File menu and choose Login to Trade Account. Enter the login and password, select the server, and click OK. A green connection bar in the bottom right corner tells you you’re in. A red bar or “No connection” usually means the wrong server, so check the server name before you check anything else.

On the MT5 mobile app, open Settings, tap New Account, search for the server name and log in with the same details.

Part 3: The Four Windows of MT5

MT5 looks busy at first glance. Ignore most of the screen. Four windows do 90% of the work.

Market Watch (Ctrl+M). The list on the left shows every symbol you trade, with bid and ask prices updating live. Gold or the Nasdaq index missing? Right-click inside Market Watch and choose Show All. Right-click any symbol and choose Specification to see contract size, minimum lot and trading hours. Remember Chapter 2 of Module 1? This window is where those numbers live.

The chart. Drag a symbol from Market Watch onto the main area to open a chart. The toolbar along the top switches timeframes, from M1, one minute per candle, up to MN, one month per candle. Now press F8 to open chart properties, and on the Show tab, tick “Show ask price line.” MT5 draws only the bid by default. Last chapter explained how a short trade’s stop gets hit when the ask touches your level while the bid line stays clear. With the ask line on screen, you see the danger before the spread bites.

Navigator (Ctrl+N). Your accounts, indicators and scripts. Drag an indicator such as the ATR from Navigator onto a chart, and the settings window opens.

Toolbox (Ctrl+T). The panel along the bottom. The Trade tab lists open positions and pending orders. The History tab shows closed trades. Keep this panel open at all times.

Part 4: Placing an Order on MT5

Press F9, or double-click a symbol in Market Watch, and the order window opens. Work through the fields from top to bottom.

Symbol comes first. Check the pair. Sounds obvious, until the day you buy GBP/USD when you meant EUR/USD. Type comes next: Market Execution for an instant trade, Pending Order for a limit or stop order. Then Volume, your lot size. You calculate this number before you open the window, never on a whim inside the window. Last come Stop Loss and Take Profit, the prices from your plan.

Let’s place last chapter’s trade. You buy EUR/USD at 1.0850, with a stop at 1.0825 and a target at 1.0900, risking 1% of a $10,000 account. Volume: 0.40. Stop Loss: 1.0825. Take Profit: 1.0900. Click Buy by Market. The position appears in the Toolbox, and two dashed lines appear on the chart, labelled SL and TP.

Need to adjust a level? Drag the line on the chart, or right-click the position in the Toolbox and choose Modify. Remember last chapter’s rule. Tighten freely. Never widen.

For a pending order, switch Type to Pending Order, pick Buy Limit, Sell Limit, Buy Stop or Sell Stop, enter the price and set the expiry. Chapter 1’s warning applies here too. A forgotten “good till cancelled” order fills while you sleep.

Part 5: Reading Your Account Numbers

Look at the bottom row of the Toolbox Trade tab. Five numbers sit there, and each one tells a different story.

• Balance: your account value from closed trades only. Open trades don’t touch the balance.
• Equity: balance plus or minus the profit or loss on open trades. Equity is the live figure.
• Margin: the amount set aside to keep your open positions running. Chapter 5 of Module 1 showed how leverage sets this number.
• Free Margin: equity minus margin, the room left for new trades.
• Margin Level: equity divided by margin, shown as a percentage.

Quick check. Your balance reads $10,000, and one open trade shows a $180 loss. What’s your equity? $9,820. Many prop firms count open losses toward their loss limits, so a floating loss matters long before you close the trade. Check how your own account measures the limit on the General Rules page.

Part 6: The Two Settings Beginners Overlook

Setting one is the default volume. Open Tools, then Options, then the Trading tab. The volume setting lets you choose between “last used” and a fixed default. On “last used,” the order window fills in whatever size you traded last time. Trade 2 lots of gold in the morning, and your next EUR/USD order window opens with 2 lots waiting. Set a small fixed default such as 0.01, and type the real size on every trade.

Setting two is One Click Trading. A tick box in the same Trading tab switches the feature on, and Alt+T shows buy and sell buttons on the chart itself. One click opens a trade at once, with no confirmation and no stop loss. Handy for experienced scalpers. Dangerous for anyone who clicks around a chart to look at candles. Leave One Click Trading off until you’ve placed at least 50 trades the slow way.

Part 7: The MatchTrader Walkthrough

Now the second platform. Open the MatchTrader link from your dashboard in Chrome, Safari or Edge, enter your login details, and you’re trading. No download. No server list. On your phone, the same platform runs on a mobile screen with the same account.

The screen splits into four zones. The exact layout shifts a little between versions, but the logic stays the same.

• Watchlist, on the left: your symbols with live bid and ask prices. Search by name to add a market.
• Chart, in the centre: TradingView charts, with drawing tools and indicators along the side. If you’ve used TradingView before, you’ll feel at home within minutes.
• Order panel, on the right: Sell and Buy buttons showing both prices, a volume box, and fields for stop loss and take profit.
• Positions panel, along the bottom: open positions, pending orders, history and your account figures, including balance, equity and margin.

Here’s the same EUR/USD trade on MatchTrader. Select EUR/USD in the watchlist. In the order panel, set the volume to 0.40, add a stop loss at 1.0825 and a take profit at 1.0900, then check the Buy price. Click Buy. The position appears in the bottom panel, where you edit the stop or target later.

Pending orders sit in the same order panel. Switch from a market order to a pending order, choose limit or stop, and enter your trigger price.

One MatchTrader habit worth building early: look at the gap between the Sell and Buy prices before every trade. The gap is your spread. Five minutes before a big news release, you’ll watch the gap stretch, and you’ll understand why your stop needs a buffer.

Pop Quiz

You trade a $10,000 Instant Funding account with a 3% daily loss limit, or $300. You have one trade open, showing a $180 loss. You spot a new setup and plan to risk 1%, or $100. Safe?

Barely, and “barely” isn’t a plan. If your limit counts open losses, $180 plus $100 adds up to $280, only $20 from the limit. One slipped stop and the day ends. Cut the new trade to 0.25% risk, or wait until the first trade closes. If you said “wait,” give yourself a gold star.

Why This Matters on a Moneta Funded Account

A platform doesn’t know your trading plan. MT5 and MatchTrader will both let you open 3 lots on a $10,000 account if the margin allows, and neither stops the click because of your daily loss limit. The rules get checked after the trade, when the damage is done. So the final check belongs to you. Symbol, direction, volume, stop loss, take profit. Five checks, five seconds, every single trade.

Up Next: Chapter 4

Stay tuned, because the next chapter covers what happens between your click and your fill. You’ll learn why slippage happens, what a requote is and why some platforms ask you to accept a new price, and how execution speed, server location and your own internet connection shape the price you get. Every stop loss you placed today depends on the fill you get tomorrow. See you in class.

Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Trading forex and CFDs involves significant risk of loss. Platform menus, shortcuts and layouts vary by version and device. Figures used in examples are for illustration only. Moneta Funded accounts use simulated capital for evaluation purposes. MT5 availability depends on your country of residence.