When it comes to trading, having access to high quality charting software can make the difference between long-term success and short-term failure.
You are going to be using charts for every single trade so it makes sense to invest in something that enables you to perform better. TradingView provides traders with a comprehensive, high-quality platform that is years ahead of any competitor.
In this TradingView beginner’s guide we will go over everything you need to know to start using the platform. We recommend you open TradingView in another window so you can follow along!
- Overview of TV
- First Steps
- Tips & Charts
- Top Toolbar
- Right Toolbar
- Left Toolbar
- Bottom Toolbar
- Recap & Future Guides
1. Overview of TV
Before we dive into the specifics, let’s take a look at TradingView as a whole and what you can get out of it.
What Is TradingView?
TradingView is the leading browser-based charting platform.
With a wide array of customization options and a smooth charting experience, TradingView is undoubtedly the best in the business. Brokers and exchanges will often provide their own charting software but these do not meet the standards set by TradingView.
Whilst it is primarily for charting, TradingView is also a social platform for traders. You have the ability to join discussions, follow traders, and a whole host of other community driven content.
You can use TradingView with a free account and even take trades through a connected broker with it. But for serious traders, investing in a paid TradingView account is something to seriously consider. We will go through the different payment options available and which ones are best for you a little later in this guide.
Why Should You Use TradingView?
Brokers make more money when traders lose money. That’s a fact. From their point of view, there’s no real incentive to provide traders with charts that have state of the art tools and functionality. This will only improve your trading performance, resulting in less profits for them.
Why would they invest their time and money toward charting software when it would be better spent in other, more lucrative pursuits? Of course, not all brokers operate this way, but many do.
Charting platforms, on the other hand, generate profit by providing you with the best charts available. Their whole purpose is to give traders access to as many useful tools they can think of. The better the charting experience, the more users will adopt the platform and pay for a subscription.
In the end, it comes down to the businesses interests.
Brokers are focused on enabling trade transactions and they benefit when you lose a trade. Charting platforms aim to provide the best charting experience for traders. As a trader, you obviously want to make money. Would you use a broker’s charting software if you knew it was holding you back, making you less money? No, you wouldn’t.
So if you want to enable yourself to perform better, TradingView may be what you need to elevate yourself to that next level of trading. TradingView offers some of the best tools and functionality that enable you to curate your trading experience so that it best suits you.
In this guide we will show you tools that we haven’t seen anywhere else online – tools that turn a 5 minute task into a 5 second task. For these reasons and more, we believe TradingView is one of the best charting platforms currently available to traders.
What Will You Learn?
In this TradingView Guide you will learn:
- How to create an account with TradingView
- How to navigate TradingView
- How to personalize and set up your charts with TradingView
- How to change time frames and save your chart layouts
- How to create and save different watch lists
- Where to to find the most popular tools
- How to connect your broker account with TradingView
- How to take a trade from TradingView
2. First Steps
First things first, let’s look at creating an account. If you already have an account, feel free to skip to the next section where we will show you the different accounts and what they offer.
How To Create a TradingView Account
To create an account you can simply follow this link and click “join for free” in the top right corner. Follow the instructions and that’s it, you’re done! You have successfully created a free account with TradingView.
The free account gives you access to the following features:
- Access to the charts.
- 3 indicators per chart.
- 1 saved chart layout.
- 1 indicator template.
- 1 enhanced watchlist.
- Trading through a connected broker.
Unfortunately, using the free account means you will see the occasional advert. They can be annoying but they’re not too intrusive – with a paid account you won’t see any adverts.
You can continue using the free account for this guide, but if you plan on using TradingView as your charting platform you will likely want to upgrade to a paid account.
If you’re not sure about paying for TradingView, I highly recommend using the free one month trial. You’ll have access to all the tools and it should give you plenty of time to get a feel for the software and whether or not you want to pay.
Just remember – the trial will end after a month and you will then be charged for whatever trial you signed up for. If you want to cancel, go to the billing tab in your profile. Here you’ll see all the subscriptions you have with TradingView and how to cancel them.
Now, let’s take a look at the different accounts that are available to you.
Different Account Types
TradingView offers 4 types of Accounts (listed in order of cost):
- Free account.
- Pro account.
- Pro+ account.
- Premium account.
If you follow this link and scroll down a little, you will see a comparison of what all the different accounts have to offer. This is also the page where you can sign up for the free trial. Remember, the trial will automatically update to a subscription when it ends!
We recommend the Pro account because it offers pretty much everything you need to get started as a sole trader.
At the end of the day, you will know best if you would benefit from the additional features provided by the other accounts. See what you think!
3. Tips & Charts
TradingView has a lot to offer and it can be a bit overwhelming at the start. In this chapter, we are going to take you through the main chart area and give you some handy tips.
Overview of Charts
Before we take a look at the charts, here’s a quick tip:
You can undo almost anything you do on your chart by using the ctrl+z / cmd+z shortcut.
You can also use the undo arrow on the top toolbar. So if you change something and you realize you: a) have no idea what you changed, or b) don’t like what you just did, don’t worry, you can instantly undo it!
In the image above the main sections are labeled. We will go into more detail for each of these sections throughout the guide:
- This is the top toolbar where you can find things like time frames, indicators, and chart layouts.
- This left side will be your most used section on TradingView. It houses all the tools you can place on your chart.
- This is the main chart area where you’ll be applying all your indicators and tools.
- Here you can find your currency pairs and watch lists, as well as some handy tools such as alerts, an economic calendar, and social tools.
- The bottom toolbar is mostly used for notes and testing. It is also where you go to connect your broker account with TradingView, enabling you to enter trades straight from TradingView!
Main Chart Area
Quick tip! You can use ctrl+c / cmd+c (copy) and ctrl+v / cmd+v (paste)! This comes in very handy when you’re placing things like Support and Resistance areas.
Whew – if you’ve never used TradingView before, you’re probably seeing a lot of things you don’t like right now. Maybe you prefer a line chart over candlesticks, or perhaps the color scheme isn’t quite to your liking. Fortunately, it’s very easy to customize your charts and we think you should!
You are going to be spending hours of time here so you may as well make it comfortable and to your taste.
Simply right-click in the main area and click on Settings. This will open up a new window and you will be placed within the Symbol section.
You can change the color of your candles, whether that is the body, border, or wicks. The most useful option here is the Bid and ask tickbox. If you enable this, the Bid and Ask prices will be displayed on your chart which makes it easier to be aware of the spread.
You’ll find the Scales section which enables you to change the color of the x and y-axis. There are quite a few different customization options here with regards to information that is displayed on the scales, including the Bid and Ask price levels. Click some of the boxes and see which ones you want to display.
The Appearance tab lets you customize more of your chart to whatever preference you may have. We suggest trying out most of the options as it helps you to get familiar with the tool.
The Trading tab has a couple of useful settings, including the highlighted one in the image below. This changes the profit and loss to be displayed in either ticks or %.
The right-click on the chart area also gives you a couple of handy functions. The ‘Remove Indicators’ button will remove any indicators you have on your chart. So feel free to try out some indicators because you can get rid of them in an instant!
Another handy feature in the right-click menu is the ‘Add Alert’ feature. This will allow you to add an alert at the exact price point where you right-clicked. It will open up a new window, where you can then change all the options to your liking – you can even change the value if you want.
As you’ll now see, TradingView can send you alerts via app, popup, e-mail, or webhook. Unfortunately, if you want to get an SMS alert, you need to upgrade to the premium account. Once you’re done, simply click “Create” et voila! You’ve got an alert set up.
There’s obviously more features in that right-click menu, but if we were to go over every single thing, we’d be here for an entire week. For now, have an explore with your charts and remember – you can always undo anything with ctrl-z/cmd-z!
4. Top Toolbar
The top toolbar of TradingView has quite a few useful tools, but there’s also a couple that you won’t need. Let’s take a look at the essentials you need to know.
To make it easier for you, here’s an image with all the buttons numbered:
- The first button is the time frame being displayed on the chart. On a free account you won’t have access to all the time frames, but you still get a decent amount of choice. Simply click this button and you can choose to change the time frame
Top tip for paid users – if you simply type in a number it will trigger a pop-up on the chart which will then change the time frame.
It will default to minutes, but you can change this by typing d for day, w for week, and m for month after you choose the number you want.
2. This button lets you change the candles on your charts. We recommend the candle sticks but if you have a different preference, this is where you go to change it!
3. The Indicators button does exactly what it says on the box. This is where you will find all the indicators available on TradingView. If you create your own indicators, you can even upload them to TradingView through this button – if that’s your kind of thing.
4. The alert button is our fourth button on the list. This will open the alert pop-up that we looked at in the previous chapter.
5. Replay is probably one of the coolest features on TradingView. This feature lets you go back in time on the charts so that you can practice trading! When you click on replay it will open up some controls at the bottom of your chart.
From here you can select the speed of the replay. The button on the far left lets you choose how far back you want to go and from there, you can press the play button.
Give it a try – it is intuitive to use and can help speed up your learning.
6. These arrows are simply the undo/redo buttons so if you prefer to not use the ctrl/cmd-z shortcut, you can use these instead.
7. The square button lets you change the layout of your chart window. You can display multiple charts at once which increases your efficiency by a wide margin.
You do need to have a paid subscription to use this but it is a great feature.
8. This button allows you to save your charts so you don’t lose a chart setup you have spent hours perfecting. Clicking Unnamed will save the layout, and the dropdown arrow to the right will let you rename the chart layout, export the chart, or even swap over to other loadouts you have saved in the past.
9. Probably the simplest button on the top toolbar, this activates full screen mode.
10. The Publish button lets you publish your ideas to the social element of TradingView. There is a camera next to this blue button which also lets you take a snapshot of your chart. We don’t use the social feature much on TradingView but it may be to your liking – why not give it a look?
That about sums up the top toolbar! There are some really useful features up here with a couple that you will use on a daily basis. For now, let’s move onto the right toolbar…
5. Right Toolbar
You will be using the right hand side of TradingView quite often.
Before we get into it, you can resize the box that contains the symbol information and details to give more space for your watchlist above. It can feel a bit claustrophobic at times!
You can add notes about the selected symbol and get information on the volume and price fluctuations for the day.
Above these two boxes you will find the watch list. This is where you will manage the pairs you want to trade or keep an eye on.
The watch list can be customized in a couple of ways.
You can click and drag to rearrange the pairs, resize the width, as well as remove and add any pairs you want. You can remove pairs by hovering over them and clicking on the x that appears on the right.
To add a pair, click the ‘+’ icon in the top right. If you type in BTC, a long list of available Bitcoin pairs will pop up. Too long, really!
You can make this list shorter by choosing the right market. The crypto tab is going to have all the regular pairs you are looking for. There is also a forex tab, a stocks tab, futures, and more. Pretty easy!
Another thing to be aware of when choosing your pairs is who the provider of the data is. If you look at the image below, you can see I have a list of cryptos to choose from.
The number 1 tag points to the ‘All Sources’ button. If you click this it will open a window where you can filter by data providers.
So if you type in ‘Eightcap’ you will get all the symbols provided by them which you can then add to your watchlist via the ‘+’ button.
You have a few more customization options from the ellipses menu in the top right.
From here you can change symbols, customize the columns of your symbols, alongside a few more features.
One of the best bits of this watchlist is the ability to ‘Flag’ symbols. This is a color code mechanism which allows you to organize your pairs in any way you see fit.
Right click on a symbol and you will see the above menu open up. From here, you can flag it with a color.
You can utilize these flags on pairs you are watching and trading. You could have one color for large time frame trades, another for short time frame trades, a color for specific setups – the list goes on and on. You can organize these flags in any way you want!
Now, for the right toolbar there are just three more things that are worth pointing out.
The first one to draw your attention to is the alarm clock. This is where you can navigate to manage all of your alerts that are currently active.
The second button is the news tab. This shows you the most recent headlines for the pair you currently have selected. It is incredibly useful to get a quick idea of what may be going on in the world that could be influencing price.
The third and final button is the calendar. It displays an economic calendar for the pair you have selected which shows you upcoming economic events. A big part of trading is being aware of upcoming events which enables you to maneuver ahead of time. This is a great tool to help improve your trading and one we recommend you use regularly.
With that, we are done looking at the right hand side! Next up I’ll go through the left toolbar which is going to be very important for your charting.
6. Left Toolbar
The left toolbar is where you will find all of the drawing tools for the charts. There’s quite a few buttons here and you will be using a lot of them, so try not to feel overwhelmed!
First and foremost, all the tools can be added to your favorites toolbar. Simply hover over the tool you want to add and click on the star icon.
The favorites toolbar is a free moving bar of your favorite tools that you can toggle on and off from the left toolbar. It’s way way down at the bottom marked as number 1 in the image below:
Number 2 on this image is the crosshair button. This allows you to change your mouse cursor to a dot, an arrow, or a crosshair – whichever one you like the best.
Below the crosshair button you’ll find all of the Line tools. Things like trend lines, vertical lines, as well as the horizontal lines and parallel channels.
The horizontal line does exactly what the name suggests – it places a horizontal line on your chart. The Parallel Channel and the Flat Top/Bottom tools allow you to place a highlighted channel on your chart.
One of these three tools is going to be what you use to place your support and resistance areas so it is handy to know where they are.
If you need to place more than one, remember you can use the ctrl-c ctrl-v shortcut. This will save you quite some time when putting down trend lines and support/resistance areas.
Number 4 has multiple buttons attached to it and these are all highlighting button that allow you to place indicators on your chart or that allow you to draw on your chart and place shapes.
Check these out and see what they have to offer – there are some fibonacci tools in there as well as some Elliott wave tools which many of you will be familiar with.
One particular tool we want to draw your attention to is the lowest of number 4’s buttons.
The two highlighted drawing tools are the long and short position tools. These are the most useful tools on the entirety of TradingView!
It lets you place your stop loss, entry and take profit on to your chart with an awesome visual aid. On top of that, it will tell you the amount of pips your stop loss and your take profit cover, as well as your risk-to-reward ratio (RR).
With this tool, you don’t need to waste time on calculating your RR – it is right there in front of you. Isn’t that great?
The 5th number on this toolbar highlights the tools that allow you to use a free hand paint brush on the chart, alongside text as well. There are a few more features within these buttons for you to try out.
That covers the most useful buttons on the left-hand toolbar – let’s move onto the bottom toolbar next!
7. Bottom Toolbar
This toolbar can seem overwhelming at first, but don’t worry! I will help you sort through the most beneficial aspects.
The bottom toolbar gives you access to a lot of different information and data. Don’t worry, you can resize this area as well if you don’t really care about this information. However, there are some useful things on this toolbar.
The first useful feature to draw your attention to is the timezone at number 1.
You may have been frustrated with trying to know what timezone your broker or exchange operates in. Fortunately, there is a simple way to never second guess their time zone ever again.
Clicking on the time zone will open up a menu with a whole host of timezones. The only one we care about is the Exchange zone.
This will automatically set the time zone on your chart to match the one that the data provider is using. So with this setting, you will see what timezone Eightcap’s symbols operate on!
Next to this you have ext, %, log, and auto. These are your axis options.
For crypto trading you will want to use the log scale. This is where you can find the button for it, but you can also find it when you right click on the chart.
One element you will likely be using is the Trading Panel and this is where you can connect your TradingView to your broker, enabling you to trade directly from the charts.
Clicking on Trading Panel will open up the tab and display a bunch of different brokers.
In order to find Eightcap, you need to scroll down and click See All Brokers.
From there, find Eightcap and simply connect your account! You can find a step-by-step guide for this right here if you need more information.
There is also the ability to do paper trading (demo trading) on TradingView through this Trading Panel if you want to practice without losing any money.
Finally, number 4 highlights some predefined time ranges which, when clicked, will set your chart to display the data for that amount of time. So clicking on 6M will show the last 6 months of price. Useful to save some time and quickly get an idea of a symbol’s context.
8. Recap & Future Guides
And there you have it! While we didn’t cover everything TradingView offers in this guide, you should now be able to use TradingView at a confident level.
The best way to keep getting familiar with the platform is to just play around with what they have to offer.
There is quite a lot to remember in this guide and with TradingView in general, so make sure you bookmark this page if you need to remind yourself of some of these tips.
Here’s a quick list of things that are handy to remember:
- Messed up and your chart looks all weird? Use ctrl+z or cmd+z to undo!
- Want everything gone from your charts? Use the bin button!
- You can easily zoom in and zoom out, by simply scrolling up or down.
- You can save your chart layouts by clicking on the cloud button!
- Make sure to star your favorite tools and time frames.
- Switch to ‘Log Scale’ for crypto trading!
- Use the ‘Long Position’ and ‘Short Position’ tools to save yourself precious time.
- Add alerts quickly by right-clicking at your cursor position!
We hope you found this guide useful for kickstarting your usage of TradingView. Updates to this guide will be made as more features are added so keep an eye out for those!
What are you waiting for? Get trading!