Your preliminary experience with a new charting platform can be intimidating, naturally. If you've never used TradingView before, the interface might feel busy at first. This guide will help you learn how to use TradingView in a simple manner.
TradingView can be broken down into several steps, but it also requires some practice on your end. Once you feel familiar enough with it, TradingView has the potential to serve as a solid gateway to financial markets. Even if you’re only taking your first steps in online trading, understanding this tool is key to seizing opportunities in the market. Here are several things you need to know about TradingView.
Finding Your Way Around
After signing up and logging in, the screen will show you a number of charts, watchlists, and drawing tools. Enter any ticker, like AAPL or BTCUSD, into the search bar and hit ‘Enter’ - the corresponding chart will pop up instantly. The layout of TradingView isn’t cluttered, and that’s a great advantage till you learn to fully navigate the platform.
On the left is a toolbar You can use it for drawing lines, highlighting support and resistance, and marking price patterns. The top bar includes options to change chart types and timeframes, plus an “Indicators” menu, where you can add things like RSI or moving averages. For beginner traders, who use TradingView for the first time, we recommend starting with constructing simple things, like candlestick charts and one or two indicators.
Adjusting Charts and Indicators
Want to customize your view? Switch between candlesticks, line, or bar charts. Click into “Indicators” and pick what you like. After adding one, click the ‘Settings’ icon to tweak it to your taste in terms of length, colors, or visibility. Many new users find this flexibility very advantageous, helping them master how to use TradingView more efficiently. It’s not necessary to add a dozen indicators. One or two, well-configured, is a good starting point.
Alerts and Layouts
Alerts aren’t the first thing you should maneuver, but they do tend to be very helpful along the way. Right-click on a price level and select “Add Alert.” Choose how you want to be notified (email, pop-up, or phone alert). We recommend that you try all of them before deciding what’s most comfortable for you.
Also worth mentioning are the saved layouts. After customizing your charts, you can save the workspace so it reloads next time. Switching between saved chart panels this way is very simple. It might seem like a small detail, but once you learn how to use TradingView, it can speed up and even automate your processes.
Community Features and Sharing
There’s a section where users publish chart setups and trade ideas. That can be useful for you, especially if you’ve yet to be familiar with terms like “MACD divergence”. Browsing shared ideas gives exposure to brief yet very helpful visuals and captions. Of course, these suggestions are educational, not trade signals, so you should never rely on them as advice.
For those who are just starting out, the key is to practice drawing lines, watch simple patterns, and gradually explore tools, rather than diving into complex scripts immediately. You learn how to use TradingView over time, so it is recommended to take your time to truly grasp these features.
Wrap-Up
Getting past the initial uncertainty is the hardest part of mastering TradingView, just like with every other platform or tool. However, step-by-step exposure to basic functions like chart loading, indicator adding, alert setting, and layout saving, can help you steadily grow comfortable. Learning how to use TradingView is something that takes time, and we hope this guide has helped you break it into digestible tasks.