Profile
Also called Chart profile, Platform profile, Workspace, Layout
A profile in trading is a saved set of chart windows on your platform: which symbols are open, their timeframes, indicators and layout. The word also appears in volume profile, market profile and risk profile, which mean different things.
Switching profile does not close your trades. It does close the charts of the profile you leave. If an automated strategy was running on one of those charts, it stops, and that can cost money.
What a profile saves on your trading platform
A profile is a named snapshot of your chart area.
You build one per job. A swing trader might keep four daily and 4-hour charts of major pairs in one profile and two gold charts for intraday work in another. One click swaps the whole screen instead of opening charts one by one.
A profile is not a template. A template stores the look of one chart, such as its colours and indicators. A profile stores the whole group of charts.
The drawing below shows two profiles side by side.
Other "profiles" traders mean
If you searched this word, you may have met one of its other uses. They share only the name.
| Term | What it describes | What you use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Platform profile | A saved group of charts | Swapping screens quickly |
| Volume profile | How much traded at each price | Finding prices where trading was heavy or thin. You look for the price with the longest bar, where the most trading happened. |
| Market profile | How much time price spent at each level | Seeing where the session found balance. You look for the price where the profile is widest, where price spent the most time. |
| Risk profile | How much loss you can accept, in money and in nerves | Setting risk per trade and maximum drawdown |
To tell which meaning you have met: a histogram drawn sideways on the price axis is a volume or market profile; a named list of saved screens is a platform profile.
How a profile switch can cost you $150
Your open positions, stop losses and take profits sit on the broker's server. They stay there whichever profile is on screen.
An Expert Advisor (EA), a program that manages trades for you, is different. It runs on one chart on your own computer. When the chart closes, the program stops.
The figures below are an illustrative example. You buy 0.50 lots of EUR/USD with a stop loss 30 pips below entry. An EA on that chart is set to move the stop to your entry price once the trade is 30 pips in profit.
- At 20 pips in profit you switch to another profile to check gold. The EUR/USD chart closes and the EA stops. You stay on the gold profile for the next hour.
- Price climbs to 35 pips in profit. Nothing moves your stop.
- Price turns and falls to the original stop.
Reloading the EUR/USD profile reopens the chart and starts the EA again, but the EA forgets what it was tracking. It only reacts to price from the moment it reloads. If price is already back below +30 pips by then, the move of the stop to entry never happens.
With the EA running, the trade would have closed at entry for about $0 before spread and commission. Without it, you take the full 30-pip loss.
The rule: if any chart in the current profile runs an EA that manages an open trade, do not switch away. Add the chart you need to that same profile instead.
Where you find and switch profiles
On a desktop platform, look for a menu entry named Profiles, Workspaces or Layouts, with a "save as" option and a list of saved names. You save the current screen under a name, then pick a name from the list to load it.
The label varies. MetaTrader 5 calls it a profile. Other platforms call it a workspace or a layout. Mobile apps often have no profiles at all, or a much simpler version.
Some platforms save changes to the active profile as you work, so check how yours behaves. If it does, a chart you close by accident may be gone from that profile next time. Save the same screen under a second name, such as "Gold intraday backup", and never work in that copy.
Checks before you switch or build a profile
- Write down which charts carry an EA in the profile name, e.g. "Gold intraday (EA)".
- Confirm that automated trading is still enabled after you load a profile. Do not assume it.
- Read the symbol and timeframe on each chart before you place an order. A new profile can show a different pair in the same screen position.
- Name profiles by job, such as "Swing majors" or "Gold intraday", not "Profile 1".
- Keep each profile small. Every open chart with indicators uses memory and processing power.
- Try the switch on a demo account first, with a test EA attached, to see how your platform behaves.
FAQ
What is a weekly profile in trading?
It is the shape a week's price action takes: which day sets the high or low of the week, and whether the rest of the week trends or ranges. Some price-action traders sort weeks into a few typical shapes and plan around them. It is a way of reading the chart, not a platform setting.
What is a delta profile in trading?
A delta profile splits the volume at each price into trades that hit the ask (buyers lifting offers) and trades that hit the bid (sellers hitting bids), then shows the difference. It needs exchange trade data, so it is mostly used on futures. Spot forex has no central exchange to supply that data.
Do pending orders still trigger after I switch profile?
Yes. Pending orders sit on the broker's server, so they trigger whichever profile is on screen. Only orders an EA would have placed or managed from your computer are affected.