Have you ever been puzzled by the comprehensive interface of the TradingView platform? If you have, you are not alone. Although TradingView is one of the best analysis platforms for traders of the financial, stock, and cryptocurrency markets, navigating the platform for a start could be overwhelming.

If you are new to TradingView, you can be assured that the platform’s hundreds of icons and tools can be mastered in record time. This guide will help you discover new features on TradingView. It will also help you better navigate the platform’s trading interface. But before we learn how to use TradingView effectively, let’s find out what the platform is and why we should be interested in it.

Source: TradingView

What Is TradingView?

TradingView is a trading platform traders use to analyze the financial, crypto, and stock markets. TradingView was founded by Denis Globa in 2011 and has grown to become the most famous chart platform in the world. Currently, the platform is used by over 30 million traders.

The platform has several charting tools to aid traders spot trends and access real-time data to make trading easier.

Getting Started on TradingView

Understanding the TradingView platform is surely easier than rocket science. With this guide and a little practice, you could move from beginner to pro level in no time. Follow the steps outlined below to get started.

Select a Plan

Source: TradingView

The first step in using the platform is to sign-up. You will find the “Get Started” button on the website’s homepage. Click on it to proceed, then select a plan. You may choose the Pro plan, the Pro Plus plan, or the Premium Plan. Alternatively, you can stick with the free plan. The good news is that TradingView allows newbies to try out their paid plans for free for one month before getting charged.

Source: TradingView - Plans

Complete the Sign-Up Process

After selecting a plan, you will need to complete the sign-up process. Although signing up is optional, it is recommended that you sign up in case you’ll need to track your analysis from another device. Also, signing up on TradingView will lead to the possibility of interacting in TradingView’s community. You can easily sign up via Google, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Explore TradingView

On the home page of TradingView, you have access to products, community, markets, news, and brokers. For technical analysts, the go-to section would be the product section. From the product section, traders can access charting tools and trading data.

Understanding the Trading Interface

TradingView has several useful toolbars to aid traders in analyzing charts. Interpreting data on the trading and chart interface is pretty easy. It can be likened to interpreting traffic signs.

Every color and icon stands for something; in many cases, this could be figured out easily by toggling the cursor of your PC around the icon or tool. Trading toolbars can be found on the left, right, top, and bottom of the trading interface.

The Left Toolbar

Source: BTC/USDT - TradingView

The toolbar on the left-hand side of the chart allows traders to navigate, draw, comment, and measure critical points on the chart. From this toolbar, traders can use the drawing tools to mark support regions, resistance regions, and potential Fibonacci retracements. Additionally, traders can use the tools to draw trendlines. Trendlines make it easier to spot possible entry and exit points.

The Right Toolbar

Source: BTC/USDT - TradingView

The right toolbar is used to access numbers or data, most of which are represented in figures. Notably, the right toolbar showcases more than numbers. Traders can access news and economic calendars.

While technical analysts utilize the left toolbar more, fundamental analysts utilize the right toolbar more. You can access up-to-date news on the right toolbar, interact with other traders, and share your market analysis.

Although TradingView allows traders to share their analysis publicly, the platform also frowns against blind trading. As a trader, you should be responsible for your entries and exits.

The Top Toolbar

Source: BTC/USDT - TradingView

The top toolbar is the easiest to understand and the most used section by traders. It enables traders to switch currency pairs and toggle between timeframes. You can also add technical indicators, set an alert, and replay the chart from the top toolbar. Setting an alert enables you to know when to enter a trade.

For instance, suppose the current price of Bitcoin is $20,500, but from your analysis, you project a dip in price that may send BTC to trade around $19K before it rebounds. You could set an alert around $19,000, so you’ll get notified if Bitcoin’s price eventually falls so low. This would save you from early entries and maximize your potential gains.

The Bottom Toolbar

Source: BTC/USDT - TradingView

This toolbar has the market screener, pine editor, strategy tester, and trading panel. The screener reveals more info on cryptocurrency, stocks, and forex pairs. With the screener, a trader can view a pair’s volume change and the crypto pair’s technical rating.

The pine editor is used for creating technical analysis strategies that can be added to the chart. However, the pine editor may not be relevant for beginner traders. On the bottom toolbar, traders can also open trade positions directly from the TradingView platform when they connect to a broker.

How to Interpret Chart Data on TradingView

The main data on the trading interface is made up of Candlesticks. Each candlestick represents the price of an asset at a particular time. From the structure of a Candlestick, one can determine the opening price, closing price, and high and low of an asset at a certain timeframe.

Source: GT/USDT - TradingView

From the image above, the price highlighted with a red background is the current price of the GT token against USDT. Thus, 1 GT is currently valued at $4.4805.

The green candlesticks are bullish candlesticks. They represent an increment in the price of the Gate token for the timeframe under study. In the image above, each candlestick represents the one-day price change (D). Interestingly, a user can select other timeframes. It could be monthly (M) or weekly (W), and it could also be 4 hours (4H), 1 hour (1H), 30 minutes (30m), or even 1 minute (1m).

Note that uppercase and lowercase letters can differentiate the minute and monthly timeframe symbols. 1m represents 1 minute, while 1M represents 1 month for each candle.

Candlesticks have wicks and bodies. The wicks of the candlesticks reveal how high or low the token price reached during that period. The candlesticks’ bodies reveal the token’s opening and closing price. Red candlesticks are called bearish candles, while green candlesticks are called bullish candles.

Note that the colors of candlesticks can also be customized to a user’s desired color. This can be done by double-clicking on the candlestick. After clicking on a candlestick, the candlestick settings pop up. You can then customize the colors from there.

A candle is bearish when the closing price is lower than its opening price. This means that the price of the cryptocurrency asset plummeted during that period. A candle is bullish when the closing price is higher than its opening price.

Adding Indicators to Your Chart

Indicators reflect price movement and are used by some technical analysts to spot or confirm entries. The problem with indicators is that they cannot be fully relied on.

While some technical analysts believe indicators control price, the reverse is the case. Price action controls the indicators. Hence, indicators are best used in harmony with other analysis techniques.

Source: GT/USDT - TradingView

To add indicators to your chart, click “indicators” at the top of the screen. The Relative Strength Index (RSI), Exponential Moving Average, and the MA cross are some of the most famous indicators. You can scroll through the list of indicators and select any you wish to add to your chart. To remove the indicator from your chart, simply right-click on the indicator and select the remove option.

Advantages and Disadvantages of TradingView

Just like every other trading platform, TradingView has its pros and cons. Here are some of the advantages of the TradingView platform.

Advantages

• TradingView is free to use. Although the platform has pro and premium plans, the free version is also suitable and has many features for trading efficiently.
• The Replay feature allows traders to view an asset’s behavior in retrospect. It enables easy backtesting of strategies and could protect traders from unnecessary exposure to risk.
• TradingView has a wide range of data aggregation. The price action of a crypto asset could be analyzed using data from almost any renowned crypto trading app.
• The platform has a dynamic selection of assets, including stocks and forex pairs.
• TradingView can be accessed from any device without downloading an application or software. Analysis on multiple devices can also be synced together.

Disadvantages

• TradingView’s community stirs interaction amongst traders, but this could be detrimental for newbies. Numerous traders share their ideologies with conviction, causing noobs to jump into risky trades.
• Although TradingView has a wide range of assets, it supports relatively few brokers for direct trading on the terminal.
• TradingView’s customer support can only be utilized by paying customers.

Conclusion

To many Traders around the globe, the TradingView platform has become as relevant as a soccer boot to a soccer player. It is a must-use tool, and millions of traders benefit from the multiple features of the platform.

Undoubtedly, this guide will be helpful for many newbies to find their way around the platform. However, reading this beginner’s guide alone will not be helpful. Implementing the lessons from the guide will help you utilize TradingView to the fullest.