How to Start Trading with TradingView: A Beginner's Guide

How to Start Trading with TradingView: A Beginner's Guide

Reading time: 8 minutes

Available on PCs, web browsers, and mobile devices, TradingView stands out for its advanced charting features, offering over 100,000 public indicators to meet the demands of traders of all styles and techniques. 

TradingView's numerous charting capabilities, sophisticated analytical research tools and world-renowned social trading community make it a top choice for traders and investors.

Key Features of TradingView:

• TradingView’s social trading community truly sets it apart. More than 50 million traders use TradingView worldwide - an active community where ideas are exchanged and strategies are shared. 
• With 15 different chart types—from the basics, such as the line chart and bar chart to more advanced chart types, like the Renko chart—its charting capabilities are enjoyed by beginners and advanced traders alike. 
• TradingView’s chart layout function allows up to 16 charts on a single chart, making multi-timeframe analysis easy and accessible. 
• Real-time global news feature and in-depth economic calendar for FX traders, along with financial analysis metrics for equity traders.
• Pine Script programming language permits users to create custom indicators and strategies.
• Bar-by-bar replay allows traders to validate trading ideas using simulated historical data. 

Trade with FP Markets Through TradingView 

As a live account holder with FP Markets trading through a cTrader account, you can access the TradingView charting platform and use it to trade directly with FP Markets. 

The process is simple to open a TradingView account: 

Step 1: 

Create a TradingView account by clicking on the ‘Get Started’ icon at the top right corner of the TradingView web page, as shown in Figure 1, or simply sign in to your existing account if you have one.

Figure 1

Step 2: 

Once you’ve signed in to TradingView, connect with FP Markets by clicking on the ‘Trading Panel’ at the lower left corner (Figure 2) and scroll down the broker list and select FP Markets. 

Figure 2

Step 3: Enter your user ID and password to connect your live FP Markets account with TradingView (Figure 3).

Figure 3

TradingView Basics

• Creating a Watchlist

By creating a watchlist, each time you use TradingView, you have access to all your markets each time you log in to the platform. 

Establishing a ‘watchlist’ can be done by clicking on the Watchlist drop-down tab at the top right corner (Figure 4) and clicking on the ‘add symbol’ function (+) to move trading instruments into your watchlist. Ensure that your ‘source’ is set to FP Markets. 

Figure 4

• Trading

Hit the 'Trade’ button at the left lower panel, as illustrated in Figure 5, prompting an individual order panel to open up where you can access several order types and trade directly with FP Markets (Figure 5A). This panel allows the traders to input all the values to execute a trade, from desired price to lot size, take profit and protective stop-loss order value, and more. Once you've pencilled in your details, click ‘buy’ or ‘sell’; this will send your order directly to FP Markets as your primary broker.

Figure 5

Figure 5A

• Alert Function

Right-click on the chart of interest to add an alert. The example below (Figure 6) shows the alert function for the GBP (British pound) and USD (US dollar) currency pair (GBP/USD). 

Using the drop-down tabs, users are permitted to create an alert for a number of conditions, including price crossing beyond a level (Figure 6A), as well as inputting trigger timing and setting an expiration date. 

Figure 6

Figure 6A

• Chart Layout 

As communicated at the beginning of the article, the chart layout function on TradingView allows traders to separate charts through a single layout. Up to 16 charts can be employed per layout, though most traders tend to only use up to 6 charts.

Applying this function can be achieved by simply clicking on the ‘Select Layout’ drop-down tab (Figure 7, which currently shows a double-layout of two charts on BTC/USD in two different timeframes); from here, you can select from a number of different layout templates. As a point of note, the crosshair is usually synced across all the charts. To alter this, unsync the crosshair function in the Select Layout tab (Figure 7A).

Figure 7

Figure 7A

• Drawing Tools

There are a number of drawing tools that can be employed on TradingView. As shown in Figure 8, you can access the available tools on the left panel, which includes tools such as trend lines, Fibonacci, harmonic patterns, etc. 

You can also list your favourite drawing tools by checking the star feature next to each tool. This will then provide a flexible toolbar that can be moved around the chart for your convenience. 

Figure 8

• Indicators

Tap the ‘indicators’ tab at the upper left corner to bring up the ‘indicator, metric and strategies' feature (Figure 9). 

Figure 9

Under ‘technicals’ you will find different indicators to choose from, as illustrated in Figure 9A. To mark those that you regularly use, you can again simply check the star mark (left side of the indicator) and this will add that indicator to the Favourites section.

Figure 9A

Why Trade with TradingView?

FP Markets, a Forex and CFD broker, has teamed up with TradingView, a popular platform known for its advanced charting tools. This partnership opens up a world of possibilities for clients with active trading accounts at FP Markets to effortlessly incorporate TradingView's cutting-edge charting solutions into their trading.