Practical tips for tailoring MT4’s Market Watch display: add columns, manage pairs, save sets, and enable a compact pop-up view.
Customising the Market Watch display in MT4
This article explains how to customise the MT4 Market Watch display to suit your trading preferences.
How to customise the Market Watch display in MT4
In MT4, exchange rates are monitored via the Market Watch window. The default display offers a selection of currency pairs along with their Bid (sell) price and Ask (buy) price. However, you can tailor this display in various ways.
Adding or removing currency pairs in MT4
To add currency pairs to the default list or remove pairs you don’t use, right-click in the Market Watch window and select “Symbols”.
This opens a list of all available currency pairs.
Pairs with a yellow icon on the left are the currently displayed ones, while those with a grey icon are hidden.
Double-clicking a pair toggles its visibility.
Note: Currency pairs currently opened on charts cannot be hidden. To display a chart for a specific pair, it must first be visible in the Market Watch window.
You can also right-click and select “Show All” to display every available pair, or “Hide All” to hide all except those currently open on charts.
Adding or removing columns in MT4
The default display only shows the Bid and Ask prices. You can add more data as follows:
- Spread: Displays the spread for each pair (Note: in MT4, a value of 1 equals 0.1 pips)
- High/Low: Shows the highest and lowest prices of the day
- Time: Indicates the time of the last quote update
To adjust column visibility, right-click in the Market Watch window and select the items to show or hide.
Active items are highlighted by a tick.
Saving currency pair sets in MT4
Market Watch allows you to create and save sets of currency pairs so you can easily switch between them.
For example, you might create a “dollar” group for USD-based pairs, and a “euro” group for EUR-based pairs.
To save a set, right-click in the Market Watch window, select “Sets”, then click “Save As” and name your set.
Your saved set will appear in the list
Click on your saved set to display it in Market Watch.
Using the pop-up display in Market Watch
If you're working on other tasks and just want to monitor exchange rates, you can use the pop-up feature.
Right-click in the Market Watch window and select the option “Popup prices” to display real-time prices in a separate window.
This provides a simplified view without disrupting your main screen.
