Your first five minutes
MSP is installed. Now here is how to actually read it. Five timed steps take you from a blank chart to your first correctly sized trade. No prior MT5 experience needed.
Not installed yet?
Start at the install guide instead. It takes about two minutes, then come back here.
The five minute tour
Load a settings file
MSP has 279 settings. You are not going to touch them. Load one file and every one of them is set for you.
- Right-click the chart and choose Indicators List.
- Select Market Structure Pro Dashboard, click Properties.
- Open the Inputs tab, click Load at the bottom, choose your file, click OK.
On a prop firm challenge? Use the free preset pack further down this page. Trading your own account? Leave Trading Style on AUTO TIMEFRAME and Risk Profile on Moderate, and set Risk per trade to the percentage of your balance you are willing to lose on one trade.
Read the verdict badge
Top left of the dashboard is the whole product compressed into one line: a direction, a grade out of 100, and a state. If you only ever read one thing, read this.
| State | What it means | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| ATTACK LONG ATTACK SHORT | Conditions line up and the move is underway. | This is the entry state. Take the trade plan as shown. |
| PREPARE LONG PREPARE SHORT | A setup is forming but is not confirmed. | Get ready. Do not enter yet. |
| EXHAUSTION LONG EXHAUSTION SHORT | The move is running out of fuel. | If you are in, protect profit. Do not open a new position in that direction. |
| MONITOR | Nothing worth acting on yet. | Wait. This is normal for most of the day. |
| NO TRADE | A filter has actively blocked signals. | Stay out. Step 3 tells you which filter and why. |
Once you are in a position the state changes to reflect management instead of entry: TRADE ACTIVE, MANAGE POSITION and TAKE PROFITS.
Read the reason line
Directly under the verdict is the WHY row. It names the single biggest factor behind the current state in plain English, so you are never left guessing what the software is thinking.
This is the row that turns MSP from a signal into a lesson. Read it every time, even when you disagree with it.
Understand what blocks a trade
Most of the value in MSP is the trades it stops you taking. Three filters do the blocking, and each one has a row on the dashboard.
- Trend strength. If the market has no directional force behind it, a breakout is usually a fake. Below the minimum, signals are blocked.
- Ranging filter. Measures how choppy price is. Chop is where account damage happens, so a high reading blocks signals outright and a medium reading shows a caution.
- Volume. A move on thin volume rarely continues. Below the threshold, signals are blocked.
A fourth check watches your spread and blocks entries when it widens, which is what keeps you out of the first seconds of a news release.
NO TRADE is the product working
A red badge is not a fault and it is not a missing signal. It is MSP telling you that the conditions you would need to win are not present right now. Most people lose money in exactly the conditions this state describes.
Read the trade plan
When a trade is on, MSP draws the whole plan on the chart and lists it on the dashboard.
- Entry is where the setup becomes valid.
- Stop is placed using the average candle range for the timeframe, not a fixed number of pips, so it adapts to how volatile the market is right now.
- Target 1 and Target 2 are multiples of your stop distance. Target 1 at 1.5 means you make one and a half times what you risked.
- Lot size is calculated for you. MSP works backwards from your stop so that being stopped out costs exactly the percentage of your balance you set in step 1.
The one number that matters most
Risk per trade decides everything else. At 0.5% you can lose ten trades in a row and still be inside a 5% daily loss limit. At 2% you are three trades from a breach. If you are on a funded challenge, set this from your daily loss limit, not from how confident you feel.
Wait for the candle to close
By default MSP only makes decisions on completed candles. A half-formed candle can look like anything, and acting on one is the fastest way to get chopped up. If the state changes mid-candle, let the candle finish before you do anything.
MSP also holds a new state for a couple of candles before committing to it, so the verdict does not flicker back and forth while you are trying to read it.
You are ready
That is the whole loop. Wait for a state you are willing to act on, read the reason line, check nothing is blocking, take the plan as drawn, and size it with the lot MSP gives you.
Everything else in MSP is detail that supports those five steps. You can learn it at your own pace from the Learn Hub, and the in-chart Learning Mode button explains any panel you click.
The prop firm preset pack
Included free with every licence. Seven settings files, each tuned for a specific stage of a funded account or a specific instrument. Load one and MSP becomes more selective, sizes every trade to a fixed percentage of your balance, and stays out of the conditions that break challenge rules.
| File | Risk per trade | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| 01 Challenge Phase 1 | 0.75% | Your first challenge phase. FTMO, FundedNext, E8, The5ers and most two-phase challenges. |
| 02 Verification Phase 2 | 0.50% | The second phase, where the target halves but the limits do not. |
| 03 Funded Payout Protection | 0.40% | A live funded account. Tuned to protect the payout rather than grow fast. |
| 04 Trailing Drawdown | 0.35% | Topstep, Apex, MyFundedFutures and anything with an intraday trailing drawdown. Banks profit earlier. |
| 05 Forex Intraday Majors | 0.50% | EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, USDCHF, USDCAD on M15 to H1. |
| 06 Index Scalp | 0.50% | US30, NAS100, SP500, DE40, UK100 on M5. |
| 07 Gold Intraday | 0.40% | XAUUSD on M15 and H1. |
Free with every licence. Includes a read me with the loading steps and a table of spread settings for your broker.
What the pack does not do
MSP is an indicator, not a trade manager. It cannot see your prop firm dashboard and it will not stop you placing a trade, so it cannot enforce your daily loss limit for you. What it does is size and filter so that following it keeps you well inside the limits. The discipline is still yours.
Two things people ask on day one
Why is it saying NO TRADE all morning?
Usually because you are on a low timeframe during a quiet session. MSP skips the Asian session by default in the prop presets, and the volume filter blocks thin conditions. Check the dashboard rows to see which filter is active. If you want more signals, the honest fix is to trade a more active session rather than to loosen the filters.
The lot size looks too small
That is the risk percentage doing its job. A smaller stop gives a bigger lot and a wider stop gives a smaller one, so the money at risk stays the same either way. If the lot really is too small to trade, MSP tells you it has been capped at your broker minimum, which means the position would risk more than you asked for.