What is eTrader?

eTrader is a trading terminal. You open it in a browser at terminal.etraderweb.com or in the app on an iPhone or an Android phone, pick the Broker or prop firm that gave you an account, and trade forex, metals, indices and crypto on that account. The prices, the account and the money all belong to the firm. eTrader is the screen you trade from.

One terminal, many firms

Most firms used to hand their clients a separate app. eTrader works the other way round. Every firm on the platform is listed inside the same terminal by its name and logo, and you choose yours from a search box on the first screen. The Login you type is the one the firm issued: a Server, an account number and a password. The Broker picker guide walks through that screen.

Because the firm issues the account, questions about deposits, withdrawals, leverage, spreads or account approval go to the firm. eTrader holds no money and has no deposit or withdrawal screen. Funding happens on the firm's own client portal.

If you do not have a firm yet, you can still use every part of the terminal on an eTrader demo account. It trades virtual money on live prices and takes about a minute to open. See opening a demo account. eTrader issues demo accounts only; a live account always comes from a Broker or a prop firm.

What you get in the terminal

The layout is the one you would expect from a desktop trading platform: Market Watch on the left with spread, bid and ask for each symbol, the chart in the middle, and a panel underneath with your positions, your history and your alerts. The terminal tour names every part of the screen.

• Six chart types, from candlesticks and Heikin-Ashi to line and area, nine timeframes from M1 to MN, and tick charts that draw every price change.
• The indicators traders already know, such as moving averages, RSI, MACD and Bollinger Bands, and drawing tools including trend lines, channels and Fibonacci.
• Orders drawn on the chart. Entry, stop loss, take profit and pending orders are lines you drag to a new price.
• An order ticket that shows the margin the order needs and the free margin you will have left, before you send it.
• Market depth, where the firm publishes it, price alerts that reach your phone, and, on the web, up to four charts on one screen.
• Trade history for any date range, which the web terminal exports as a CSV file.

Where it runs

The browser terminal needs nothing installed and runs on any computer, Mac included, or a tablet. The iPhone app is on the App Store and the Android app is on Google Play. On Windows, Mac and Linux, eTrader runs in the browser.

Positions, pending orders and price alerts belong to the trading account, so a position you open on the phone is in the browser a moment later. The apps guide covers what each one adds.

Robots, AI Bots and money managers

eTrader has its own programming language for trading robots and indicators, called Tide. You write a program in eTrader Code, which runs in the browser and has a strategy tester. A finished indicator draws on your chart. A finished robot, which eTrader calls a bot, runs in the cloud: you add it to your account from the Bots window in the terminal and it keeps working after you close the app.

eTrader AI lets you build your own AI Bot from blocks, set its rules and limits, and connect it to one or more of your accounts. Every bot and AI Bot runs either in Trade mode, where it places orders, or in Signals only mode, where it sends you a notification and leaves the decision to you.

eTrader Code and eTrader AI sign in with an eTrader ID, a personal login that uses a code sent to your email. The trading terminal does not need one.

Where your Broker offers them, MAM, PAMM and copytrading are part of the same terminal. You join a money manager from the manager's invite link, or copy another client of the same Broker, on the account you already trade.

What eTrader does not do

It does not open live accounts, hold client money, or tell you what to trade. It does not pick a Broker for you either: a firm appears in the list once it has joined the platform. Trading leveraged products carries a high risk of loss, and results on a demo account say nothing about what a live account would do.