How to use TradingView? — A beginners guide

TradingView is an advanced third-party online web-based trading and charting platform that allows traders of all skill levels to access numerous fundamental and technical analysis tools, indicators, and drawing tools. 

It also allows traders to network with various traders from around the world by sharing ideas, insights, and different strategies.

Even though this is a web-based platform, users can download TradingView directly to their computers or laptops, whether they have iOS, Windows, or Linux. The TradingView app for smartphones and tablets is also available from the iOS App Store or Google Play Store.

The platform takes real-time price data feeds from various exchanges and brokers and presents it to the user.

This enables traders to gain a broad overview of what is currently happening in the markets while providing the opportunity to customise their charts to match their trading plan and make informed trading decisions on the financial markets and instruments they might be looking to trade, whether its stocks, bonds, ETFs, indices, commodities, or forex, to name a few.

Apart from the real-time data, there is also additional information such as historical price data, various news and economic event releases, key financial details and statements, and multiple indicators that could assist traders in technical and fundamental analysis.

That’s not all; TradingView also offers additional features such as financial instrument screeners, heat maps, Pine Script (its own programming language allowing traders to create their own indicators and/or strategies), and strategy tester, which will all be covered in this article to provide you with a complete overview.

That said, traders can trade directly from the platform by connecting their TN Trader account. A Trade Nation account is the best way to get the most out of TradingView’s supercharts. We pioneered ultra-low-cost trading, combining institutionally tight spreads, zero commissions, and fixed spreads. Read more about how Trade Nation’s integration with TradingView can help you get the most out of the supercharts.

TradingView offers users the ability to sign up for a free account, which will give them many of the platform's features, with some exceptions, such as the number of indicators you can place on the charts or the ability to display multiple charts per tab.

Several paid options are also available, including the essential, plus, and premium plans. These plans allow you to pay monthly or annually.

These paid options offer many more features, such as adding more indicators to the charts and more charts per tab, to name a few.

TradingView offers traders a wide variety of ways to customise their charts, with many different features designed to assist in their analysis and decision-making process.

We also have a YouTube channel dedicated to all aspects of using TradingView, providing you with practical, easy-to-follow how-to videos regardless of whether you’re a beginner or an experienced trader.

In the following sections, we’ll provide a step-by-step overview of how to use the platform and its features.

Getting started

The first thing you’d want to do is open the TradingView website on your preferred web browser and click on “Get Started.” This will take you to another window where you can click on “Sign up.”

Once you’ve clicked on “Sign up,” another window will appear where you can see different options for signing up to the platform via email address, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Gmail. Once you’ve entered your details, click the “Sign in” button.

Once you’ve signed in, it will take you to the home page, which will have a few different tabs available for you to choose from, namely:

• Products: Here, you can access the charts terminal, heat maps, screeners, and a calendar showing when certain economic events will occur.
• Community: This is where you’ll find information posted by other traders, such as trading ideas, educational ideas, and scrips regarding strategies and indicators created by traders.
• Markets: Here, you’ll be able to find and analyse the financial instruments you’re interested in, as well as filter through instruments based on their specific financial market or more in-depth overview, such as most volatile, top gainers, and top losers.
• News: This is where you’ll find all the latest news in real time. You can also pick a feed you might be interested in, such as markets, the world, or corporate activity.
• Brokers: This will provide you with a list of all the brokers integrated with TradingView, along with their star ratings, number of active accounts, and number of reviews listed.

For the purpose of this article, we’re only going to focus on the “Supercharts”, which you can access by hovering your cursor over the “Products” tab and clicking on “Supercharts.” This will then take you to the main chart terminal.

Navigating the platform

The main chart window has five key areas, which we’ll cover in the following sections. The first one is the main window, where the actual chart is displayed. 

On the y-axis are the prices displayed, which will vary between instruments. On the x-axis are the dates, which will vary depending on the timeframe you choose.

Charting tools: Top toolbar

1. Symbol Search: You can search for a specific financial instrument by typing in the ticker symbol or the instrument name you want to see. You’ll find that many options of the same instrument are available. This is because TradingView takes all the real-time prices from the various brokers it’s integrated with and presents them to the user.
2. Compare or Add Symbol: If you want to compare different instruments, you can click on the “Compare or Add Symbol” icon where a pop-up menu will appear. You can search for the specific instrument you want to compare with the current instrument displayed on your chart. When you click on your chosen instrument, a new line, generally in orange, will appear on the charts, which can assist you in analysing the performance of the two different instruments.
3. Timeframe: Here, you can adjust the timeframe of the data you want to see regarding the instrument you might be looking to trade, for example, weekly, daily, 4 hours, 1 hour, or 5 minutes.
4. Chart Types: Here, you can change the chart type you might want to use when analysing the market. There are many different options to choose from, such as the bar, candlestick, hollow candlestick, volume candles, line, line with markers, step line, area, baseline, columns, Heikin Ashi, and Renko chart.
5. Indicators: TradingView offers a wide variety of built-in indicators, such as moving averages, Relative Strength Index (RSI), Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), Stochastic Oscillators, and different volume indicators, just to name a few. Other traders have also created additional indicators using Pine Script, TradingView’s programming language tool. When placing an indicator on the charts, you can adjust the settings by clicking on the “Settings” icon next to the indicator name.
6. Templates: Here, you’ll find a combination of pre-built indicators that other traders have saved as templates for anyone to use instead of having to choose those indicators individually. Once loaded onto your chart, you can still adjust the settings to your preference. You can also create your own template with your preferred indicators and share it with other traders.
7. Alerts: Here, you can set up an alert for when the price reaches a certain level of interest. Click on the “Alerts” button, and a pop-up menu will appear where you can set specific conditions when you want it to trigger, as well as an alert name and message. You can also click the “+” sign on the charts next to the price to add an alert directly at a certain price level.
8. Bar Reply: This function lets you review your strategy through past price movements. You can do this by clicking on the “Bar Reply” tab, scrolling back to a specific date and time you’d like to analyse, and clicking on any bar of your choice. A tab will appear with various options such as “Play,” “Forward,” and “Replay speed.”
9. Undo and Redo: If you did something on the charts that wasn’t intended, you can click on the “Undo” icon, and it will be removed. If you’ve clicked it too many times and it took something away that you still want on your charts, you can click the “Redo” icon.
10. Layout setup: Here, you can select the number of charts you want displayed on your single tab. Unfortunately, you can only add multiple charts per tab once you sign up for one of the platform’s paid subscription plans.
11. All changes saved: You can create and save multiple layouts for different financial instruments. However, the free version allows you to save only one template. If you want to save multiple templates, you’ll need to sign up for one of the paid subscriptions offered.
12. Quick Search: Here, you can quickly search for any function within the platform, whether it’s a specific drawing tool or setting you might want to access.
13. Chart Settings: Within the chart settings functions, you can customise your chart area to your preference, whether that’s changing the background or the colour of the candlesticks or adding or removing certain visual representations that you might want to see or not.
14. Fullscreen: Accessing the fullscreen option will remove all the toolbars and the watchlist so you can focus only on the instrument you’re analysing. You can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to switch between instruments while in fullscreen mode.
15. Take a snapshot: With this option, you can take a screenshot of your chart’s current state to keep as a record. You can also share it on social media if you want.
16. Publish: This option lets you share your chart with the TradingView community. After clicking on the “Publish” icon, you’ll be asked to add a short heading and description of your idea that you might want to publish. Once you’ve finished, you can go ahead and click “Continue.”

Community and analysis tools: Right toolbar

1. Watchlist and details: Within this window, you’ll be able to see all the financial instruments you’re looking to analyse, which could be anything from forex currency pairs to specific stocks, commodities, or indices, to name a few. If you want to add an instrument to the watchlist, you can click on the “+” icon situated next to “Watchlist”, where a pop-up window will appear. Type in the instrument’s ticker symbol or the instrument’s name, and choose the instrument from your preferred broker by clicking on the “+” sign next to the broker’s name. To remove an instrument from your watchlist, click on the trash can icon, which becomes visible when your cursor is placed on the instrument.
2. Alerts: When clicking on the “Alerts” option, a window will appear in place of your watchlist, displaying all the alerts you’ve placed and those that have already been triggered.
3. Object Tree and Data Window: The first window displays all the current indicators and drawing tools used within the specific financial instrument you’re currently analysing. A toggle option at the top of this window allows you to switch between the “Object Tree” and “Data Window”. When the “Data Window” is chosen, you’ll be able to get a quick overview of essential information regarding the current instrument you’re analysing, such as the open, high, low, and close of price, as well as the price change percentage and volume data.
4. My Ideas: In the previous section, we mentioned publishing your chart analysis with the option of giving it a title and description. Now, in the “My Ideas” window, you’ll be able to find all your published ideas, making it more accessible to keep track of them.
5. Chats: Here, you’ll find all the live chats you can join to discuss and share ideas. You can join different chat rooms for various financial markets and instruments. You can also access private chats by clicking on the “Private” option at the top of the chats window.
6. Ideas Stream: You can access ideas and analyses from various traders who share their insights into the financial instruments they might be trading.
7. Screeners: This option allows you to filter through different stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies based on specific criteria depending on the financial market you might want to analyse. At the top of the window is a drop-down menu where you can choose between the different screeners, stocks, ETFs, or cryptocurrencies. There are also additional drop-down menus to further filter through various criteria such as price, price change percentage, market cap, P/E, and sector, to name a few.
8. Calendars: With this option, you’ll be able to see and track all upcoming economic events, such as FED interest rate decisions, non-farm payrolls, unemployment rates, GDP releases, and CPI announcements, to name a few. You could also access different categories by clicking on the “All categories” drop-down menu to narrow down the economic event you might be interested in and see when it will occur. Apart from the economic events releases, you could also look at the earnings reports for different stocks, revenue data for various stocks, and possible dividend payouts for different stocks.
9. Help Centre: Here, you can access articles for a specific issue or query you might have, a list of the most popular questions users have with answers, and additional information such as keyboard shortcuts, Pine Script Q&A, and the Pine Script manual.

Drawing tools: Left toolbar

1. Cursor Selection: You can choose one of three cursors: a cross, a dot, or an arrow. There is also an eraser, which you can use to remove any drawings.
2. Trend line tools: You could use various line tools, such as the horizontal line or horizontal ray, to mark up potential support and resistance levels. You could also use the trend line, ray, or extended line to identify possible up or down trends. Additional tools, such as the parallel channel or the regression trend, could also be used to spot channel chart patterns.
3. Gann and Fibonacci Tools: These are more advanced drawing tools, such as the Fibonacci retracement, Fibonacci channel, Gann box, and Gann square, which could be used in conjunction with certain trading strategies, such as retracement trading.
4. Patterns: These drawing tools could be used to identify possible chart patterns such as the triangle or head and shoulders. There are also more advanced drawing tools, such as the ABCD pattern, XABC pattern, Cypher pattern, or Elliot Impulse Wave, which could assist traders in identifying possible future price movements in the market.
5. Forecasting and Measurement Tools: This tool’s forecasting part comes in with the long and short position drawings, which could be placed on the chart to assist in potentially forecasting what the market could do and also calculate the profit and loss would’ve been if the price moved against that position or not. Measurement tools such as the price range could be used to measure price movement during specific intervals, while the date range could be used to measure how long it took for the price to reach that specific target.
6. Geometric Shapes: These shapes could be used to identify specific areas of interest during a trader’s market analysis. There are various shapes to choose from, such as a highlighter, up and down arrows, a rectangle, a circle, or a triangle.
7. Annotation Tools: These tools could be used to make notes on the charts if a trader wants to remember something during their market analysis. There are various notes and text options to choose from, such as anchored text, callout, price label, or price note.
8. Icons: This is generally the least used of all the tools options; however, if a trader wants to personalise their charts by adding emojis, they can find many different options in this tool.
9. Measure: This tool combines the price and date range tools. A trader can measure the price range during a specific interval while also measuring the time it took to reach that point of interest. The tool also displays the volume level.
10. Zoom in: Use this tool to zoom into the chart to get a better focus on a specific candle or time period.
11. Magnets: This tool will enable drawing anchors to be snapped to the closest open, high, low, and close (OHLC) values of nearby bars for a more precise alignment.
12. Stay in Drawing Mode: If a trader wants to keep using a specific drawing tool without having to select it continuously, they could enable this tool, which will keep that particular tool active.
13. Lock All Drawings: This tool could be active to ensure no accidental changes occur to any drawing tools displayed on the charts. It will also restrict any drawings to be edited or moved.
14. Hide Options: Traders can use this tool to temporarily hide all drawings and/or indicators to gain a clearer view of the charts.
15. Remove Options: This option allows traders to remove a specific drawing and/or indicator from their charts.

Advanced tools: Bottom toolbar

1. Screener: This function is the same as the screener option explained within the right toolbar; however, the only difference is within this screener, there is the option to look at forex currency pairs, which isn’t available in the other screener option. You could choose from different filters to narrow your search if you have a specific set of currency pairs, stocks, or cryptocurrencies in mind, and their price information is available in the window’s top right corner.
2. Pine Editor: This is TradingView’s unique programming language, which traders with coding experience could use to customise previously written scripts, create their own indicators and/or strategies, and share them within the TradingView community.
3. Strategy Tester: This function allows you to backtest any of the pre-programmed strategies listed within the platform, providing sufficient information such as net profit, total closed trades, per cent profitable, and max drawdown, to name a few. This could assist in further developing a trader’s strategy and identifying where adjustments could be made. You can also backtest your strategy if you create one within Pine Script.
4. Trading Panel: This function allows you to connect with your chosen broker and trade directly from the TradingView platform. In the next section, we’ll show you exactly how to connect your TN Trader account.

You’ll need to set up your Trade Nation account and a TradingView account. Once those are in place, you can connect to Trade Nation by clicking here. Log in, and you are connected. 

We've also created a comprehensive, step-by-step video guide on how to seamlessly link TN Trader with TradingView. This tutorial will walk you through every step, ensuring you can integrate both platforms effortlessly and start optimising your trading setup right away.

How do you place a trade on TradingView?

So, you’ve connected your TN trading account to TradingView and are ready to open your first position. Below is a breakdown of how to do that.

For a more detailed walkthrough, be sure to check out our video guide. It shows you exactly how to open a position on TradingView from start to finish.

• Let’s say you’ve analysed the financial instrument you’re looking to trade, and you believe that the market will go up and want to open a long (buy) position. In the top left corner of the main chart window, you’ll see there are two prices: one is highlighted in blue, which is the ask (buy) price, and the bid (sell) price is highlighted in red. In the middle of those two prices is the spread for the specific instrument.
• To open a long (buy) position, click on the blue highlighted price. A pop-up will appear with various options, such as placing a market order, limit order, and stop order. If you’re looking to execute the trade immediately, you’d place a market order, and if you’re only looking to execute the trade at a better price than the current market price, you’d place a limit or stop order.
• You also have the option of choosing the number of units you might want to buy and placing a take-profit and stop-loss at your desired price or pip levels.
• Once you’ve finished filling in the necessary details regarding the size of your position and your possible take-profit and stop-loss levels, you can click the “Buy” button.
• Once the position is open, a blue arrow will appear on the charts below the exact candle where you opened it, and your order will appear in the Trade Nation Trading Panel area.
• Just as a side note, if you want to change your take-profit or stop-loss levels, you can do so directly on the charts by clicking on one of the levels displayed and dragging it to your desired adjusted level. You will then be asked to confirm your placement.
• When you’re ready to close the position, you can either click on the “X” displayed next to the price on the charts or the “X” at the end of the order in the Trading Panel area. A pop-up will appear, allowing you to partially close or close the entire position. When you’ve decided which option you want to take, click the “Close position” button.

• Now, let’s say you decide to open a short (sell) position instead of a long (buy) position.
• To open a short (sell) position, click on the red highlighted price, and a pop-up will appear again.
• You also have the option of placing a market order, limit order, or stop order, stating the number of units you might want to sell, and placing take-profit and stop-loss levels.
• When satisfied with all the information you’ve inserted, click the “Sell” button.
• Once you’ve done this, a red arrow will appear above the exact candle where you opened the short (sell) position, and the order will appear in the Trade Nation Trading Panel area.
• Like with the long (buy) position, you can also adjust your take-profit and stop-loss levels directly on the charts by clicking on them and dragging them to your desired level. You will then be asked to confirm your placement.
• Also, when you’re ready to close the trade, you can click on the “X” next to the price displayed on the charts or the “X” at the end of the order in the Trading Panel area. This will again bring up a pop-up where you can decide to close the position partially or entirely. Once you’re happy with your decision, you can click on the “Close position” button.