cTrader Charting Guide (Charts, Indicators, and Drawing Tools)

Chart types on cTrader

cTrader offers more chart types than MetaTrader:

Candlestick charts are the most popular, showing the open, high, low, and close for each period in a visual format that makes price action easy to read.

Bar charts (OHLC) display the same information as candlesticks but in a more compact format using vertical bars with horizontal ticks.

Line charts connect closing prices with a simple line, giving you a clean view of the overall price direction.

Dots charts display prices as individual dots, which some traders find useful for identifying specific price levels.

HLC (High-Low-Close) bar charts show only the high, low, and closing prices, omitting the open.

Additionally, cTrader supports tick charts (each candle represents a set number of price changes rather than a time period) and Renko charts (each block represents a fixed price movement, filtering out minor fluctuations). These alternative chart types are popular with traders who want to filter out time-based noise and focus purely on price movement.

The 28 timeframes

cTrader offers 28 standard timeframes plus the ability to create custom timeframes.

• Minute-based: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M10, M15, M20, M30, M45
• Hourly: H1, H2, H3, H4, H6, H8, H12
• Daily and above: D1, D2, D3, W1, Monthly
• Tick-based and Renko charts with custom settings

The ability to create custom timeframes is a feature that MetaTrader does not offer. If you want a 7-minute chart or a 90-minute chart, cTrader lets you create one. This flexibility is valuable for traders who have tested their strategies on non-standard timeframes.

Built-in indicators (70+)

cTrader comes with over 70 built-in technical indicators, organized into categories.

Trend indicators include Moving Averages (Simple, Exponential, Weighted, and more), Bollinger Bands, Ichimoku Cloud, Parabolic SAR, and SuperTrend.

Oscillators include RSI, MACD, Stochastic, CCI, Williams %R, and Momentum.

Volume indicators include Volume, On Balance Volume, and Money Flow Index.

Volatility indicators include Average True Range (ATR), Donchian Channel, and Keltner Channel.

The larger built-in selection means you can do more analysis without needing custom indicators. Many tools that require custom add-ons on MT4 come pre-installed on cTrader.

To add an indicator, click the Indicators icon on the chart toolbar or right-click the chart and navigate to the indicators menu. You can search by name, which saves time when you know what you want.

Drawing tools

cTrader provides a comprehensive set of drawing tools:

• Trend lines for connecting highs and lows to identify trend direction
• Horizontal lines for marking support and resistance levels
• Vertical lines for marking important times or events
• Channels (parallel, regression, and standard deviation)
• Fibonacci tools including retracement, expansion, fans, and time zones
• Elliott Wave markup tools
• Gann tools including fans and grids
• Rectangles, triangles, and ellipses for highlighting chart zones
• Text annotations for adding notes directly on charts
• Price range and date range measurement tools

The drawing tools are smooth and responsive. Objects snap to candle data points for precise placement, and you can customize colors, styles, and widths for each drawing.

Chart customization

cTrader offers extensive chart customization options:

• Background colors can be changed to light, dark, or custom themes
• Candle colors are fully customizable for both bullish and bearish candles
• Grid lines can be shown or hidden
• Price scale options include logarithmic and arithmetic
• Chart templates save your indicator and visual settings for quick application to new charts
• Chart layouts let you arrange multiple charts in predefined or custom grids

Multi-chart features

cTrader makes it easy to work with multiple charts:

• Open as many charts as you need and arrange them in customizable layouts
• Detach charts from the main window and move them to other monitors
• Use chart linking to synchronize crosshairs and symbols across multiple charts
• Apply the same template to multiple charts at once

Tips for better charting on cTrader

• Use chart templates to save your favorite indicator setups and color schemes. Apply them with one click to any new chart.
• Try tick and Renko charts for a different perspective on price movement. These can help you see patterns that are hidden on time-based charts.
• Use the search function to find indicators quickly instead of scrolling through categories.
• Customize your toolbar to include the drawing tools and timeframes you use most often.
• Keep charts clean. Even with 70+ indicators available, using two or three at most per chart produces the clearest analysis.