TradingView

"The Traders' Social Network": A guide to TradingView

If you’re looking for a platform where financial markets meet cutting-edge technology to empower traders of all levels, you’ll probably check all your boxes with TradingView. Designed to suit seasoned investors or those of you who are just dipping your toes into the exciting world of trading, TradingView is a powerful yet user-friendly platform that lets traders analyse markets, share ideas, and execute trades seamlessly. 

Additionally, with its advanced charting tools, social networking features, and robust security measures, TradingView provides everything you need to succeed in the dynamic world of trading and investing.

In this guide, we'll take you through the background of TradingView, its key features, and the security measures in place to safeguard your data and transactions.

Background

TradingView was founded in 2011 by a group of passionate traders and software developers with the vision of democratising access to financial markets. Their goal was to create a platform that combined powerful charting tools with social networking features, enabling traders to collaborate, share insights, and make informed decisions. Over the years, TradingView has grown into one of the most popular platforms for traders worldwide, with millions of users spanning across 150+ countries.

Product overview

At its core, TradingView is a web-based platform that offers a wide range of tools and features to help traders analyse financial markets, including stocks, forex, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and more. Here's an overview of what you can expect from TradingView:

• Advanced Charting: TradingView provides interactive charts with a plethora of technical indicators, drawing tools, and chart types to suit your trading style. Whether you're a day trader, swing trader, or long-term investor, you'll find everything you need to conduct in-depth analysis and spot potential opportunities.
• Social Networking: One of the standout features of TradingView is its social networking aspect. Users can follow each other, share trading ideas, and discuss market trends in real-time. You can also publish your own analysis and gain followers within the community.
• Customisable Alerts: Never miss a trading opportunity with TradingView's customizable alerts. Set alerts based on price movements, technical indicators, or even social sentiment, and receive notifications via email, SMS, or push notifications on your mobile device.
• Paper Trading: New to trading or want to test out a new strategy? TradingView offers paper trading functionality, allowing you to simulate trades with virtual money in a risk-free environment. It's a great way to practise your skills without putting your capital on the line.
  
• Integration with Brokers: TradingView integrates with a wide range of brokerage firms, allowing you to execute trades directly from the platform. This seamless integration streamlines the trading process and eliminates the need to switch between multiple applications. 
• Community-Generated Content: Explore a vast library of community-generated content, including trading ideas, educational resources, and market analysis. Whether you're looking for trading strategies, tutorials, or market insights, you'll find a wealth of information contributed by fellow traders.

Key features

Now let's delve deeper into some of the key features that make TradingView stand out:

• Multi-Device Accessibility: Whether you're at home, in the office, or on the go, TradingView is accessible across multiple devices, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. You can seamlessly transition between devices without losing your progress or analysis.
• Collaborative Tools: TradingView's social networking features foster collaboration and idea-sharing among traders. You can follow other users, join discussion groups, and even co-author charts with friends or colleagues in real-time.
  
• Customisable Workspace: Tailor your trading experience to suit your preferences with TradingView's customizable workspace. Arrange charts, indicators, and watchlists according to your workflow, and save multiple layouts for different trading strategies.
  
• Data Visualization: Visualise market data in a variety of formats, including candlestick charts, line charts, and bar charts. TradingView also offers advanced charting tools such as Renko charts, Point & Figure charts, and Heikin Ashi charts for more specialised analysis.
  
• Technical Analysis Tools: Take your analysis to the next level with TradingView's extensive library of technical indicators and drawing tools. From simple moving averages to complex oscillators, you'll find everything you need to identify trends, patterns, and potential entry/exit points.
  
• Educational Resources: Expand your knowledge of trading and investing with TradingView's educational resources. Explore tutorials, articles, and webinars covering a wide range of topics, from basic concepts like support and resistance to advanced strategies like Fibonacci retracements and Elliott Wave theory. 
• Multi-Language Support: The platform caters to a number of languages such as Arabic, German, English, French, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese (Simplified), and Chinese (Traditional) making it inclusive for users from various backgrounds.

Security features

Security is a top priority at TradingView, and several measures are in place to safeguard your data and transactions:

• Encryption: All communication between your device and TradingView's servers is encrypted using industry-standard SSL/TLS protocols. This ensures that your sensitive information, such as login credentials and trading data, remains secure from unauthorised access.
• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Enhance the security of your TradingView account by enabling two-factor authentication. This adds an extra layer of protection by requiring a verification code in addition to your password when logging in from a new device or location.
  
• Privacy Settings: Control who can view your trading activity and social interactions with TradingView's privacy settings. You can choose to make your profile and trading ideas public, private, or visible to select individuals only.
  
• Secure Broker Integrations: When connecting your TradingView account to a brokerage firm, rest assured that your sensitive financial information is handled with the utmost care. TradingView partners with reputable brokers who adhere to strict security standards and regulatory requirements. 
• Continuous Monitoring: TradingView employs advanced monitoring tools to detect and prevent suspicious activity on the platform. This includes monitoring for unusual login attempts, abnormal trading patterns, and potential security threats.

Types of plans -- as of April 2024

Trading view offers a total of 7 plan options, including both the free version and 3 professional options. Here’s how the pricing works out.

Non-Professional Plan Prices: There are four plans that fall into the non-professional category

• Basic free plan
• Essential Plan: $14.95/mo
• Plus Plan: $29.95/mo
• Premium Plan: $59.95/mo

In all cases, you can save some money (16%) by paying annually in advance. The paid plans all come with a 30-day free trial. We suggest going for the trial first, so you can check out TradingView’s features and see whether a plan is a good fit for you.

Professional Plan Prices: Here are the professional plan tiers and the cost of each

• Expert Plan: $239.95/mo
• Elite Plan: $419.95/mo
• Ultimate Plan: $599.95/mo

Each of these represents a major jump in price from the other plans. The professional plans don’t come with a free trial, so keep that in mind. The same deal with paying monthly vs. annually applies here: you can save 16% by paying in advance.

The Basic Plan of TradingView is totally free. You can sign up for any of the non-professional plans with a free 30-day trial and cancel at any time.