What does .cash mean in MT5?

.cash marks a cash CFD: one priced from the cash index or spot market rather than from a dated futures contract. FTMO uses it on names like GER40.cash, US100.cash and USOIL.cash. XM writes the same idea as GER40Cash and RoboForex as .DE40Cash.

Why does my broker add m to symbols?

At Exness the suffix marks the account type: m is the Standard account, c is Standard Cent, and r or z mark Raw Spread and Zero on some servers. Pro accounts have no suffix. XAUUSDm and XAUUSD are the same market on different account types.

Is NAS100 cash or futures?

At most brokers NAS100 is a cash CFD that tracks the cash Nasdaq 100 index and follows the NQ future outside US exchange hours. Futures-priced versions are labelled, for example Pepperstone NAS100-F or a dated name like NAS100Z6.

Why is the DAX called GER30 at some brokers?

The DAX had 30 companies until September 2021, when it grew to 40. Some brokers kept the old name: FXCM shows GER30, FundedNext lists GER30 and CMC Markets shows GERMAN30 described as Germany 40. All of them are the DAX 40.

What does -F or .f mean after a symbol?

Both mark a futures-priced CFD. Pepperstone uses -F for forwards priced from the front-month future, such as GER40-F, and BlackBull uses .f, such as DE40.f. They quote a different price from the cash CFD on the same index.

Are MetaTrader symbol names case-sensitive?

Yes. MetaTrader matches symbol names exactly, including case and suffix, so XAUUSD and XAUUSD.m do not resolve to each other on the platform. A journal or copier has to strip the suffix itself to know they are the same market.

Broker Symbol Names Explained: GER40, US30, NAS100, .cash, m

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GER40 DAX 40DE40 · DAX40 · GER30 US30 Dow Jones 30DJ30 · WS30 · DOW NAS100 Nasdaq 100US100 · USTEC · NDX100 US500 S&P 500SPX500 · SP500 · SPTRD US2000 Russell 2000RUSSELL · USRUSS2000 UK100 FTSE 100FTSE100 · FTSE JP225 Nikkei 225JPN225 · NIKKEI · J225 FRA40 CAC 40FR40 · F40 · CAC40 EU50 Euro Stoxx 50EUSTX50 · STOXX50 · ESTX50 HK50 Hang SengHSI · HKG33 · HANGSENG AUS200 ASX 200AU200 · ASX200 · SPI200 XAUUSD GoldGOLD · SPOTGOLD USOIL WTI crude oilWTI · XTIUSD · USOUSD UKOIL Brent crude oilBRENT · XBRUSD · UKOUSD

What the suffixes and prefixes mean

Only meanings a broker or prop firm has published are given here. Where the broker does not say, the table says so. MetaTrader matches names exactly, including case, so XAUUSD and XAUUSDm are different symbols to the platform even though they are the same market.

Suffix	Case	What it means	Example broker
m	lower	Standard account	Exness (XAUUSDm, US30m)
c	lower	Standard Cent account	Exness (XAUUSDc)
r / z	lower	Raw Spread / Zero account on some servers; others use no suffix	Exness (US30r, US30z)
.cash	lower	Cash (spot) index or energy CFD	FTMO (GER40.cash, USOIL.cash)
.c	lower	Commodity CFD; meaning not stated	FTMO (CORN.c, WHEAT.c)
Cash	capital C	Cash index CFD	XM (GER40Cash, US30Cash)
. prefix + Cash	mixed	Cash index CFD	RoboForex (.DE40Cash, .US30Cash)
[ ]	upper	Cash index CFD	Admirals ([DAX40], [SP500])
_ prefix	upper	Index futures CFD	Admirals (_GER40)
-Z	upper	Zero account (was -ECN before April 2024)	Admirals (EURUSD-Z)
# prefix	upper	Share CFD	Admirals (#AAPL)
.US	upper	US share	Pepperstone, Admirals (AAPL.US)
-24	upper	US share tradable 24 hours, 5 days	Pepperstone (AAPL.US-24)
-F	upper	Forward CFD priced from the front-month future	Pepperstone (GER40-F, Crude-F)
.f / .F	either	Futures-priced CFD	BlackBull (DE40.f, GOLD.f)
FT	upper	Future CFD	Vantage (GER40FT)
FU	upper	Rolling future	TradeNation (DE40FU)
.sim	lower	Synthetic future, cash-settled, no expiry	FundingPips (ES, NQ, GC)
.NYSE .NAS .ASX	upper	Share CFD and its exchange	IC Markets (SHOP.NYSE)
U6, Z6, U26	upper	Dated future: month code plus year (U = September, Z = December)	Many MT servers (DE40U6, NAS100Z6)
+ p x .r -T	mixed	Account or server tag; meaning not published	STARTRADER, CXM, HFM, Vantage, Admirals

Many more tags exist. Across 241 live MetaTrader servers we also see .s, .p, .e, .ecn, .raw, .pro, .std, !, = and a leading #, $ or @. They mark account tiers or servers, and none of them changes the market underneath.

Cash CFDs vs futures CFDs

Most index CFDs are cash CFDs. IC Markets, Eightcap, FP Markets, IG, Admirals and FTMO all label their index CFDs as cash. A cash CFD tracks the cash index, such as the S&P 500 or the DAX. It trades far longer than the exchange is open, and because the cash index only prints in exchange hours, the CFD follows the futures market the rest of the time.

Futures CFDs say so in the name. Pepperstone's -F forwards (GER40-F, NAS100-F) are priced from the front-month future and rolled automatically. BlackBull's .f, Vantage's FT, TradeNation's FU and Admirals' _ prefix are futures-based too, and a name with a month code and year (DE40U6, NAS100Z6) is a dated contract. Interactive Brokers states its index CFD price is directly related to the exchange-quoted future, with no expiry.

Oil is futures-priced everywhere. Even "spot" oil is built on futures: Pepperstone states its SpotCrude, SpotBrent and NatGas are priced from the front-month futures contract.

Cash and futures quote different prices for the same index at the same moment. When you compare a fill with a chart, compare cash with cash and futures with futures.

Same broker, different names

By platform. Capital.com lists US100 and DE40 on MT5 but NAS100 and GER40 on TradingView. Eightcap's website says NDX100; its TradingView feed says NDQ100.
By rename. Admirals renamed its -ECN suffix to -Z in April 2024, and [NQ100] to [US100]. Pepperstone renamed XTIUSD, XBRUSD and XNGUSD to SpotCrude, SpotBrent and NatGas. RoboForex renamed .DE30Cash to .DE40Cash in September 2021.
TradingView writes every market as EXCHANGE:SYMBOL in upper case: PEPPERSTONE:GER40, FX:GER30 (FX is FXCM), IC:DE40 (IC Markets).
OANDA's API separates base and quote with an underscore: EUR_USD, DE30_EUR.
Interactive Brokers names index CFDs IB plus region and size: IBUS500, IBUS30, IBDE40. Saxo uses .I: GER40.I, US500.I.

The number in the name can be wrong

GER30, DE30, DAX30 and GERMAN30 are the DAX 40. The DAX grew from 30 to 40 companies in 2021 and many brokers kept the old name. See GER40.

HKG33, HONGKONG33 and HK33HKD are the Hang Seng. FXCM, CMC Markets and OANDA still use the 33. See HK50.

SWISS30 at CMC Markets is the Switzerland 20 (SMI), not a 30 stock index.

CHINAH and HSHARES are not China A50. They are the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index (H-shares), at IC Markets, Pepperstone and Capital.com.

FXCM's USDOLLAR is not the DXY. It is FXCM's own dollar basket, a different index from the US Dollar Index.

How the RB Trading Pro Journal reads them

The Journal strips platform prefixes, leading #, . and $, and trailing tags like .cash, m, p or +, then matches the root against one alias table per market. GER40p, DE40.cash, .DE40Cash and PEPPERSTONE:GER40 all land on the DAX 40, and every open trade is priced live.

Cash index CFDs are priced at the cash index level. For the US indices and the Nikkei, that level keeps moving with the futures outside exchange hours, the way your broker's CFD does. A futures CFD such as US30.f or NAS100Z6 reads the futures price. Spot gold is priced from the gold future adjusted by a spot gap the Journal measures about every 30 minutes. Oil reads the front-month future it is built on. It all works the same whether trades come in by hand, by file, or live from MT4 and MT5 and cTrader.

Journal every market under any name

Log trades by hand, import a file, or live-sync MetaTrader and cTrader. The Journal recognises your broker's spelling and prices open trades live.

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How this page was built: spellings come from brokers' and prop firms' own help pages and notices, from the broker feeds on TradingView, and from a public dataset of 13,740 symbol names read from 241 live MetaTrader 4 and 5 servers (metatraderVPS/metatrader-broker-symbols, CC BY 4.0). A broker is named only where one of those sources shows it. Brokers rename symbols from time to time, so check your own platform's symbol list if a name here does not match.

By RB Trading · Updated 20 October 2026

Broker symbol names explained
why GER40, DE40 and DAX40 are one market.