MT5 price digits and rounding: why totals differ by cents

See how digits set the price precision, where rounding enters profit and what to check when your numbers do not match the terminal.

Every symbol in MetaTrader 5 has a fixed number of decimal places for its price. That number, called digits, decides how a price is shown in the history, how small a price move can be and how rounding affects the result of a trade. When your journal figures differ from the terminal by a cent, or when a stop loss seems to have moved by a tiny amount, digits and rounding are usually the reason. This page explains where digits come from, how they link to points and ticks, and what to check when numbers do not match.

What digits means

Digits is the count of decimal places in the quoted price. A major currency pair priced like 1.08432 has five digits, a yen pair priced like 151.234 has three, and many gold symbols are shown with two. These examples are typical, not a rule: brokers choose the precision of each symbol, and the same instrument can be quoted with a different number of digits by two brokers. You can see the value in the symbol specification of your own terminal; the specification page shows the rest of the fields.

One point is the smallest price step defined by digits. On a five-digit pair a point is 0.00001 and a pip is ten points; on a three-digit yen pair a point is 0.001 and a pip is again ten points. The page on points, pips and pipettes explains why the platform counts in points, and tick size and tick value explains the money value of a step.

Where rounding enters the history

• Prices in the history are shown with the symbol’s digits, so a price you computed to six decimals appears rounded.
• A stop loss or take profit is stored at the symbol’s precision; a level you type with more decimals is rounded before it is sent.
• Profit is calculated from the exact prices and then rounded to the decimals of the account currency, normally two.
• Commission and swap are rounded in the same way, so the sum of rounded parts can differ by a cent from the rounded sum of unrounded parts.

For the detail of how profit is built from price difference, volume and contract size, see how MT5 calculates profit. Rounding only shows up at the last decimal, but it can make a manual check disagree with the terminal if you round at a different step.

A worked example (hypothetical)

A trader buys 0.10 lots of an invented symbol with five digits at 1.08432 and sells at 1.08517. The difference is 0.00085, which is 85 points. If the profit per point per lot were 1.00 in the account currency, the profit would be 85 times 0.10 times 1.00, or 8.50. Now suppose the trader rounded both prices to four decimals in a spreadsheet, 1.0843 and 1.0852. The difference becomes 0.0009, or 90 points, and the calculated profit is 9.00. The 0.50 gap is entirely a rounding artefact, which is why journals should keep full-precision prices. The numbers are hypothetical.

Digits across different instruments

The effect of digits is easiest to see by comparing instrument types. Currency pairs quoted with five or three digits have very small points. Metals are often quoted with two or three digits, so one point is a relatively large step in money. Index CFDs may have one or two digits and contract sizes that make one point worth a noticeable amount. Crypto CFDs can have two or more digits and very large prices. The same lot size therefore means very different money per point from symbol to symbol, which is why a table of points alone never tells you the risk; you need the tick value and the contract size as well.

When you move to a new broker, do not assume the digits are unchanged. A broker that adds an extra digit to a symbol makes every point ten times smaller without changing the pip, and a stop distance given in points then has a different meaning. If you keep rules in points, such as a stop of 200 points, check them again whenever the digits change. Writing the digits of each symbol in your trading plan, next to the lot rules, prevents mistakes of this kind.

Practical checks when numbers do not match

What the journal does with prices

AI Trading Journal, a Windows app for MetaTrader 5 only, reads closed trades from the terminal on your PC and stores the prices and result as the terminal reports them, one entry per closed position with the result as profit plus commission plus swap. It is read-only and does not recompute or round results itself. If you export a report to Excel, the live formulas in the sheet work from the stored values, so keep the original columns when you add your own calculations. For a wider look at checking numbers against the platform, read the history columns explained.

Limits and cautions

• Digits and contract size differ between brokers; check your own terminal before copying a formula.
• Rounding differences are normally tiny, but they add up when you total many trades.
• This page is educational; the example is invented and is not advice.

Frequently asked questions

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