Bid / Ask

### Two prices, always There is never one price. There is a **bid**, the best price someone is willing to buy from you, and an **ask**, the best price someone is willing to sell to you. Whichever side you take, you get the worse of the two. Buy and you pay the ask. Sell and you receive the bid. The gap between them is the spread, and you cross it the instant you enter. That is why a brand new position shows a small loss before price has moved at all. Nothing has gone wrong. That is simply the cost of crossing. ### Your chart is showing you half of it This is the part that gets skipped. [MetaTrader's own documentation](https://www.metatrader5.com/en/terminal/help/charts_advanced/charts_settings) states that bars are formed from Bid prices, while the Ask price is always used to open long positions and close short positions. It also notes that the Ask is not drawn on the chart unless you switch on the "Show Ask price line" setting. So every candle you analyse, every level you mark, every stop you eyeball, sits on the bid. Your long entry fills above the candle you were looking at. Your short's exit, including its stop loss, is triggered off the ask, an invisible line floating a spread above everything on screen. Turn the ask line on and watch it for one session. It changes how you read your own fills. ### Where it actually bites - Shorts get stopped out *early* relative to the visible chart, because a short is closed at the ask, not at the bid candle you drew your level on. - A buffer you measured above a high on a bid chart is not automatically that same buffer in the broker's eyes on a short. Check how your platform measures the trigger before you trust the gap. - Spreads are not fixed. They widen on news and in thin sessions, so the entry cost you assumed during a calm London session is not the cost you pay into a data release. - A journal built from chart prices will always flatter you slightly. The account statement is the truth. Reconcile to it. Bid and ask is the cheapest lesson in trading. It is also one of the easiest to leave half-learned.