MT4 crosshair: measure pips, bars and price in seconds

The MT4 crosshair is a measuring tool built into every chart. Press Ctrl+F (or click the mouse wheel), then click and drag between two points, and MetaTrader shows how many bars, how many points, and what price separate them. It takes about two seconds and tells you how far a move, stop or target really is.

Here is how to switch it on, read the label without mixing up points and pips, plan trades with it, and fix it when it sticks.

Key Findings

Three ways in: Ctrl+F, the Line Studies toolbar button, or a click of the mouse wheel. Esc gets you out.
Drag to measure: the label reads bars, points and the price under the cursor.
Points are not pips: on 5-digit and 3-digit quotes, divide the middle number by 10.
Use it before you enter: measure the swing, the stop and the target, then size the position from the stop distance.

How do you turn on the crosshair in MT4?

There are three ways to turn on the MetaTrader 4 crosshair, and all of them work on the active chart:

Keyboard: press Ctrl+F. This is the MT4 crosshair shortcut listed in MetaQuotes’ own hot-key tables, and it is identical in MetaTrader 5’s hot keys.
Toolbar: click the plus-shaped crosshair button on the Line Studies toolbar, next to the arrow cursor. If you cannot see it, open View, then Toolbars, and tick Line Studies.
Mouse: click the mouse wheel over the chart. On current builds this toggles the crosshair on and off without touching the keyboard.

The cursor becomes two thin lines, with exact price and time on the scales. Press Esc or right-click to go back to the normal cursor.

How do you measure pips in MT4 with the crosshair?

To measure pips in MT4, turn the crosshair on, click and hold on the first point, drag to the second point, and read the label that follows the cursor. Nothing is drawn on the chart, so there is nothing to clean up afterwards.

Reading the three numbers

The label shows three values separated by slashes:

Position	What it shows	Example
First	Number of bars between the two points	18
Second	Distance in points	250
Third	Price at the cursor’s current position	1.08500

First

What it shows: Number of bars between the two points
Example: 18

Second

What it shows: Distance in points
Example: 250

Third

What it shows: Price at the cursor’s current position
Example: 1.08500

Worked example on EURUSD, H1: price climbs from a low at 1.08250 to 1.08500. Drag from the low to the high and the label reads roughly 18 / 250 / 1.08500. So the move took 18 hourly bars and covered 250 points.

Points versus pips

That 250 is where most new users get tripped up. MT4 counts in points, the smallest price step your broker quotes. Most brokers quote major pairs to five decimals and yen pairs to three, so one pip equals ten points. The 250-point move above is 25 pips.

For metals, indices and crypto the point size is set by the broker, so open the symbol’s specification in Market Watch before you trust a conversion. The same logic applies to the spread shown in your platform; the guide on spread and pip size walks through the math.

Using the crosshair to plan stops and targets

Before an entry, the crosshair answers four questions quickly:

How big is a normal swing? Drag across the last three or four swings on your timeframe. If each runs 40 to 60 pips, a 15-pip target sits inside the noise.
Where does the stop belong? Measure from your entry to a little beyond the level that would prove you wrong, not to a round number of pips. The article on support and resistance covers where those levels usually sit.
Does the stop fit the volatility? Compare that distance with the current ATR reading. A stop smaller than one ATR tends to get clipped by ordinary movement; ATR-based stops explains how to set one properly.
Is the target realistic? Drag from entry to the next obvious level. If that distance is shorter than your stop, the trade needs a better entry or no entry. More on this in setting profit targets.

Once you know the stop distance in pips, feed it into your position sizing so the account risk stays fixed whether the stop is 12 pips or 80.

The Data Window: the crosshair’s partner

The crosshair gives you distances. The Data Window gives you the exact values of the bar under the cursor. Open it with Ctrl+D (the same shortcut in MT5), and as you move across the chart it lists the date and time, open, high, low, close, volume, and the value of every indicator on the chart. In MT5 it also shows the bar’s spread, per MetaQuotes’ chart help.

It is the fastest way to read an exact indicator value or the precise high of the candle behind your stop. To put tools on the chart first, see how to add indicators to MT4.

MT5 crosshair: what changes

Very little. The MT5 crosshair uses the same Ctrl+F shortcut, mouse-wheel click, toolbar button and click-and-drag measurement, and Esc or a right-click turns it off.

One difference matters when troubleshooting. In MT5, a program running on the chart can switch off the middle-click crosshair for that chart. If the wheel click works everywhere except one chart, check the expert advisors and MT5 indicators attached to it.

Crosshair stuck or not showing: quick fixes

When the crosshair misbehaves, the cause is usually simple:

It will not go away. Click once inside the chart so it has focus, then press Esc. A right-click also clears it.
Ctrl+F does nothing. The chart probably is not the active window. Click on it first. If another app has claimed Ctrl+F globally, use the toolbar button instead.
The toolbar button is missing. Open View, then Toolbars, and enable Line Studies.
The wheel click does not work. Your mouse driver may map the middle button elsewhere. Use Ctrl+F instead.

On a busy chart with a session timer like the MT4 clock indicator, hide what you do not read so the crosshair label stays visible.

Where RelicusRoad fits

If you drag to yesterday’s high and low every morning, RelicusRoad Daily High Low plots those levels and today’s open on every intraday bar in MT4 and MT5. It does not tell you where to trade; it saves the part you repeat every day.

Frequently asked questions

What is the shortcut for the crosshair in MT4?

Press Ctrl+F with the chart selected. Clicking the mouse wheel over the chart does the same on current builds, and the plus-shaped button on the Line Studies toolbar is the menu route. Press Esc to go back to the normal cursor.

How do I measure pips in MT4?

Turn on the crosshair, click and hold on the first point, and drag to the second. The label shows bars, distance in points, and the price under the cursor. On a 5-digit quote such as EURUSD, divide the points figure by 10 to get pips, so 250 points is 25 pips.

Why does the MT4 crosshair show 10 times more pips than I expect?

Because the number is in points, not pips. On pairs quoted to five decimals, or three for yen pairs, one pip equals ten points, so divide by 10. Metals, indices and crypto use broker-specific point sizes, so check the contract specification for those.

Is the MT5 crosshair different from the MT4 crosshair?

Barely. MT5 uses the same Ctrl+F shortcut, middle-click toggle and click-and-drag measurement, and Esc or a right-click turns it off. The one difference is that an MT5 program can switch off the middle-click crosshair on its chart, so a wheel click that fails on one chart only usually points to an attached EA or indicator.