MT5 history columns explained: what each one tells you

Positions, Orders and Deals, column by column, with the ones that matter for a journal.

The History tab in MetaTrader 5 is the source of every statistic a journal can calculate. Yet many traders look at it only for the profit column and never read the others. This page is a column-by-column guide to the Positions and Deals views: what each column holds, which ones matter for your journal and which ones are easy to misread. Column order and names can differ between builds and brokers, so use this as a map and check it against your own terminal.

Choosing the view: Positions, Orders or Deals

Right-click inside the History tab of the Toolbox and you can pick what to show. Positions groups the entries and exits of one trade into a single row. Orders lists the instructions you sent, filled or cancelled. Deals lists the actual executions, one row for each entry, each exit and also non-trade rows such as balance operations. Each view answers a different question, which is why traders sometimes think their numbers disagree: they are reading different views.

View	One row means	Best used for
Positions	A completed trade, entry to exit	Reading results the way you think about trades
Orders	An instruction sent to the server	Finding cancelled or expired pending orders
Deals	One execution, in or out	Checking commission, swap, partial closes and balance rows

The page on deal, order and position IDs shows how the three views connect, and History Center vs account history explains the other place where history lives.

Reading the Positions view

Time (first): when the position opened, in the broker’s server time. See server time explained.
Position: the ticket number that identifies the trade.
Symbol, Type and Volume: the instrument, buy or sell, and the size in lots.
Price (first): the entry price.
S/L and T/P: the stop loss and take profit at the time of closing. They can be changed during a trade; see modifying SL and TP in history.
Time and Price (second): the exit time and exit price.
Commission, Swap and Profit: the three money columns. The result of the trade is their sum.

A frequent mistake is to read only the Profit column and conclude that a trade lost less than it did. Commission and swap are separate, and over many trades they add up. AI Trading Journal calculates each result as profit plus commission plus swap for this reason.

Reading the Deals view

The Deals view has a column for direction: in, out, or in/out. A deal marked out closes part or all of a position; a deal marked in/out is a reversal on a netting account, where one deal closes one position and opens another. The page on position reversal covers that case. The Deals view also includes a Comment column, where the server may write strings such as sl, tp or so for a stop loss, take profit or stop out; history comments explained lists the common ones, and the Balance column that shows how the account balance changed after each row.

Non-trade rows deserve a special mention. Deposits, withdrawals, bonuses, corrections and some fees appear as deals with a type of balance, credit or similar. They are not trades and must not be counted as wins or losses. The page non-trade rows in history shows how to recognise them.

Columns that traders overlook

Fee: a separate charge some brokers use apart from commission. Check whether your account has one.
Order: the order ticket behind a deal, useful for linking pending orders to their fills.
Magic: a number set by an Expert Advisor to identify its trades; empty for manual trades. See magic number explained.
Comment: free text from you, an EA or the server; it can reveal how a trade closed.
Reason: in some builds, a note on how the order was placed, for example by a client, an expert or a mobile device. Availability depends on the build.

Turning the columns into a journal

A journal needs more than the platform records: why you entered, what you felt, whether you followed your plan. That is why the history columns are only the first half of the picture. AI Trading Journal reads the closed positions from MetaTrader 5 (the first run reads the whole account history, then a scheduled task adds new closed trades every 5 minutes) and gives you the second half: setup, emotion, plan followed, a rating from 1 to 5, tags, notes and screenshots. You do not retype the columns, and you do not need to copy them into a spreadsheet, though the app can export a report to Excel if you want to work there; how to export MT5 trade history explains the manual route.

A worked example (hypothetical)

A trader opens the Positions view and sees a trade with a profit of 42.00, a commission of -3.50 and a swap of -1.20. At first glance, it is a 42.00 winner. The journal result is the sum: 37.30. In the Deals view the same trade shows two rows: an in deal and an out deal, with the commission split across them. A second trade shows a profit of 0.00 and a comment of be, which turns out to be a break-even exit with only the commission lost. The trader tags it break-even and moves on. The numbers are made up for illustration.

Limits and cautions

Column names, order and availability vary by build and by broker; check your terminal.
Server time is not your local time; read the clock rule before comparing days.
The app does not record slippage, intended prices or the floating profit of open trades.
This page explains where numbers come from; it is not trading advice.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Positions and Deals in MT5 history?

A position row is a whole trade; deal rows are its individual executions, one for each entry and exit, plus non-trade rows.

Which columns make up the result of a trade?

Profit, commission and swap. The result is their sum.

What does in/out mean?

On a netting account, a deal that closes a position and opens one in the opposite direction.

Why do some rows have no symbol?

They are probably balance rows such as deposits, withdrawals or corrections.

Do I have to copy the columns into the journal?

No. The app reads closed positions from MT5 and creates the entries for you.

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