I'd very much like to have a way to monitor my broker's execution speed and slippage.
It seems that MetaQuotes do not want end users of their MetaTrader client to monitor execution duration and slippage, as it would have been simple for them to program such featuers into their software, yet they have not done so.
Without being involved with any code, the only way to monitor execution duration would be to look in the Journal log. You can either see it in the "Journal" tab in the program window, or in the .log files under the logs directory of your MetaTrader installation. There are some differences between the two:
The lines in the Journal tab are in descending date order
The Journal tab will only show lines since the time that the terminal was opened.
The lines in the .log file are in ascending order
The .log records all lines that appeared in the Journal tab, but the latest lines may not appear. This is due to the way file flushing is handled - data that is destined for a file is kept in memory until there is enough data to do a flush to the file. Closing Metatrader automatically flushes the data.
For each trade execution there are four lines in the Journal, each prefixed with a time stamp (local time). The first contains details of the order, including requested price. The second is an acknowledgement that the "request was accepted by server". The third is an acknowledgement that the server accepted the order and started processing it. The fourth line shows the end result with actual transaction price. Here is an example:
2012.02.27 11:26:47 '1244313': instant order sell 0.01 EURUSD at 1.34570 sl: 0.00000 tp: 0.00000
2012.02.27 11:26:48 '1244313': request was accepted by server
2012.02.27 11:26:48 '1244313': request in process
2012.02.27 11:26:51 '1244313': order was opened : #18629762 sell 0.01 EURUSD at 1.34566 sl: 0.00000 tp: 0.00000
The total trade duration in this example is 4s. Often the lines will have exactly the same time stamp, because the precison is only in seconds and not milliseconds.
By using the prices in the first and fourth lines and looking at the difference, the net slippage is 0.4 pips against the trader.