TradingView Charting Guide (The Best Charts in Trading)

Chart types on TradingView

TradingView offers more chart types than any other mainstream platform.

• Candlestick (the most popular for forex traders)
• Bars (OHLC)
• Line
• Area (a line chart with the area below filled in)
• Baseline (shows price above and below a reference level in different colors)
• Heikin Ashi (a modified candlestick type that smooths out noise and makes trends easier to see)
• Hollow Candles (candlesticks where the body is hollow when the close is higher than the previous close)
• Renko (blocks based on fixed price movements, ignoring time)
• Kagi (line charts that change direction based on significant price reversals)
• Point and Figure (charts that filter out minor price movements)
• Line Break (shows price reversals by drawing lines based on closing prices)
• Range (candles that form based on price range rather than time)

For beginners, candlestick charts are the best place to start. As you gain experience, experimenting with Heikin Ashi or Renko charts can offer valuable alternative perspectives on price action.

Timeframes and custom options

TradingView offers standard timeframes ranging from 1 second to 12 months, plus the ability to create any custom timeframe you want.

Standard timeframes include

• Seconds: 1s, 5s, 10s, 15s, 30s, 45s
• Minutes: 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 45
• Hours: 1, 2, 3, 4
• Days, Weeks, Months

Custom timeframes let you create intervals like 7 minutes, 6 hours, 2 days, or anything else. This is a feature that MetaTrader does not offer and that gives you complete freedom to find the view that best suits your strategy.

Built-in indicators (100+)

TradingView comes with over 100 built-in indicators, the largest selection of any major platform.

Trend indicators: Moving Averages (SMA, EMA, WMA, DEMA, TEMA, and more), Bollinger Bands, Ichimoku Cloud, SuperTrend, Parabolic SAR, VWAP

Oscillators: RSI, MACD, Stochastic, CCI, Momentum, Williams %R, Awesome Oscillator

Volume indicators: Volume, On Balance Volume, Money Flow Index, Accumulation/Distribution, VWAP, Volume Profile (on paid plans)

Volatility indicators: Average True Range (ATR), Bollinger Bands Width, Donchian Channels, Keltner Channels

Beyond built-in indicators, TradingView has a community library of over 100,000 indicators created by users using Pine Script. You can browse, apply, and customize these community indicators with one click.

Drawing tools

TradingView's drawing tools are extensive and beautifully implemented.

• Trend lines with angle display and extension options
• Horizontal rays and horizontal lines
• Parallel channels and regression channels
• Fibonacci tools including retracement, extension, fans, arcs, time zones, and speed resistance fan
• Gann tools including fan, square, and box
• Elliott Wave notation tools
• Pitchfork (Andrews', Schiff, and Modified Schiff)
• Shapes including rectangles, circles, triangles, and callout boxes
• Text and annotations
• Price range measurement tool
• Magnet mode that snaps drawing points to OHLC values for precision

All drawing tools are accessible from the left sidebar. You can customize colors, styles, and widths for each object, and drawings are saved in the cloud so they appear on any device.

Multi-chart layouts

Depending on your plan, you can display multiple charts simultaneously.

• Free plan: 1 chart per layout
• Essential: 2 charts per layout
• Plus: 4 charts per layout
• Premium: 8 charts per layout

Charts within a layout can be synced so that changing the symbol or timeframe on one chart automatically changes the others. This is called symbol and interval linking and is extremely useful for multi-timeframe analysis.

Chart templates and favorites

Templates save your chart settings including indicators, colors, and visual preferences. Apply a template with one click to set up new charts instantly.

Favorites let you star your most-used indicators, drawing tools, and timeframes for quick access. The toolbar adapts to show your favorites first.

The indicator favorites bar at the top of the chart lets you add indicators in one click without opening the full indicator menu.

Tips for world-class analysis on TradingView

• Use Heikin Ashi for trend identification. Switch to Heikin Ashi to see the trend direction more clearly, then switch back to regular candlesticks for entry timing.
• Master the drawing tool shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts for your most-used drawing tools save significant time.
• Use the replay feature. TradingView's Bar Replay (available on paid plans) lets you replay historical price data and practice your analysis as if the market were moving in real time. It is an excellent learning tool.
• Explore community indicators. Before building your own Pine Script indicator, search the community library. Chances are someone has already built what you need.
• Set up multiple watchlists. Organize your instruments by category (major pairs, minor pairs, commodities) for efficient switching.
• Use compare mode. Overlay multiple instruments on the same chart to spot correlations and relative strength.