How forex and CFD trades are imported

Lots, quote-currency P&L, broker symbol suffixes, hedged positions and swap. What VEXA does with a forex or CFD fill and what you have to set yourself.

Same on every platform Updated 26 July 2026

What this does

Forex differs from equities in three ways that matter to a journal: size is measured in lots, profit arrives in the quote currency rather than yours, and the same pair is spelled differently at every broker.

Sizes are shown as lots

One standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency. A trade of 100,000 EURUSD shows as one lot, 10,000 shows as 0.1, and so on. This is how forex quantities are displayed on web, iPhone, iPad and Android.

In the manual CSV template, write Quantity in the units your broker recorded. The lot conversion is applied for display, so you do not need to convert anything by hand.

P&L comes from your broker where possible

The reason matters. On GBPJPY, the difference between entry and exit prices is a number of yen, not a number of pounds or dollars. Converting that correctly needs an exchange rate at the moment of the trade, which a CSV file does not contain.

So when your broker’s export carries a realized profit figure, VEXA uses it:

P&L = total realized P&L - total commission

Where the broker gives net cash per fill instead, that is used and is more accurate again. Price reconstruction is the last resort, and on cross pairs it is the least reliable of the three. This is why a forex export with a profit column is worth more than one without.

Broker symbol suffixes

Brokers add suffixes to distinguish account types and feeds: EURUSD.m, EURUSD.raw, EURUSD.pro, EURUSD.cash, and trailing hash marks. The Expert Advisor strips these, so EURUSD.m and EURUSD land as one symbol rather than splitting your history into two positions.

If you are filling in the manual CSV template, strip them yourself. Write the plain six-character pair, EURUSD, with no slash and no suffix. The template is read literally.

Hedged positions

On a hedging account, an opposing buy and sell are two positions rather than one net flat position, and that is how your broker treats them. VEXA keeps them as separate positions rather than netting them off, so a hedged pair shows as what you actually held.

Swap and financing

Overnight swap can be a charge or a credit depending on the direction and the rate differential. VEXA keeps the sign, so a positive swap on a carry trade reduces your cost instead of adding to it.

The timezone is not optional

MetaTrader servers run on their own clock, and it is rarely your clock or the market’s. VEXA defaults to GMT+2, which is the most common MetaTrader server offset and is not universal. Set the broker server timezone before uploading, or every fill is shifted and your daily grouping is wrong. See My trades are on the wrong day.

CFDs

Where a broker treats a CFD as a distinct instrument from the underlying, keep it distinct in VEXA. In the manual CSV template, set AssetType to CFD and prefix the symbol with #, for example #AAPL or #SPX500. Without the prefix, a CFD on Apple and shares in Apple net against each other as one position, which is not what you traded.

Where forex trades come from

Two routes, and they behave the same once imported.

The VEXA Sync Expert Advisor, which pushes closed trades from your desktop MetaTrader terminal on its own. See Install the VEXA Sync Expert Advisor.
A statement export from MetaTrader, uploaded by hand. MetaTrader 4 needs the Detailed Report, and MetaTrader 5 needs the Deals view. The other report types leave out the fill detail that a journal is built from.

What you should see

Sizes in lots, a P&L in your account currency rather than the quote currency, one symbol per pair regardless of your broker’s suffix, and trades sitting on the calendar day your broker’s statement puts them on.

If it doesn’t work

Sizes look like 100000 rather than 1. The trade was read as something other than forex. Check AssetType if it came from the template.
P&L on a cross pair is wrong while majors are right. Your export has no realized profit figure, so the cross was reconstructed from price. Export a report that includes profit.
One pair appears twice. Two spellings of the same symbol, usually a suffix on some rows.
Everything is a few hours out. Broker server timezone. See My trades are on the wrong day.

My trades are on the wrong day Three different timezone settings decide which day a trade lands on. Which one to change, and why one of them needs the file uploaded again. Your P&L does not match your broker How VEXA calculates trade P&L, the three bases it uses in priority order, and the six reasons your number and your broker's number can legitimately differ. Symbol formats for the CSV template How to write stock, option, futures, forex, crypto and CFD symbols so VEXA reads them correctly in the manual CSV template.

Still stuck? Email support@vexatrade.ai.