There are several trading platforms available to the average retail forex trader.
Some terrible, some good.
There is a new kid on the block and it has matured like fine wine. With a plethora of benefits and barely any downsides – there is no reason for you not to check it out after reading this TradingView review.
Especially if your broker connects with them!
In this TradingView Pro review, I’m going to help you understand the platform and why you should consider using them as your go-to charting package.
What is TradingView?
It can be argued that technology has improved most areas of life. With this in mind, TradingView (I believe) has taken retail trading platforms to the next level.
In fact, so much so that it’s not only replaced my previous trading platform, but also my news aggregator, forex trading calendar and much more… All this for a small fee.
If you work with algos/expert advisors, then you can convert them to work on the platform easily.
The core aspect behind this trading platform is the fact that you can access your charts on any device, anywhere in the world, in a responsive and user-friendly way.
No more clunky charts and spending *days* optimising your charts on your MT4 app.
Now, for those on MT4, this would certainly be a great feature to have.
The charting package is continually updated for free and is funded by advertisements (not the annoying kind) or you can get TradingView Pro for a monthly subscription and get access to a whole new world of cool features.
Admittedly, with the help of TradingView – forex trading for beginners has never had an easier point of entry to get started.
What are the benefits?
There are many benefits behind the trading platform, we will name a few to wet the whistle, but I implore you to have a look and play around with the platform itself.
TradingView Charts
One of the key selling points.
The charting is fantastic.
Clear, concise, and customisable with no limits.
The best thing about these charts is that it comes with a whole range of pre-built indicators for free.
Even the elusive Hull Moving Average!
See how clear they can be?
Not only that, here are some other cool features within the charts:
The charts can have alerts & newsfeeds set up to show you when economic events are being posted in real-time.
This is great when you are performing technical analysis and potentially protecting you from confirming a trade during a volatile time, you can get the latest data placed right in front of your eyes.
As stated earlier, the above image shows an example of a customised chart.
You can also quickly change the whole interface by switching between Light and Dark mode:
Personally, I prefer looking at a darker chart so the price and technical analysis I do pops out clearer.
The best thing is that you can save your chart set up in the cloud. This means that on every device, as long as you are logged in, you will have your charts set up for you perfectly each time.
Also carrying over your important technical analysis too.
TradingView Paper Trading Tools
Opening endless demo accounts with your broker can be a bit tiresome, but one of the great features is TradingView Paper Trading.
With the paper trading module, you can quickly and easily set up your platform to trade off the charts using virtual money.
This is by far one of the greatest features for forex traders that are transitioning from theory to practice.
You are in complete control and you can review each trade without a hitch.
You can place notes on each trade as well which is great for journaling.
TradingView Backtesting Tools
Backtesting can cost you extra on most platforms, or you have to install something, however, you can easily backtest strategies.
With a free account, you are restricted to only the Daily timeframe.
Although when backtesting this will be sufficient for most.
However, if you want to hone in on your skills using previous data – you have to upgrade.
The added advantage of this is you can practice trading on a lower timeframe, using backtesting data, in real-time.
In other words, you can practise trade setups from the past and see them unfold in real-time, allowing you to hasten up your learning.
Back when I started to learn, I’d just cover up the monitor with a piece of cardboard and manually scroll towards the current price…
How times have changed.
TradingView Screener Tools
I use screeners all the time.
In fact, I used to pay monthly for one that worked like a dream.
Then I found TradingView’s Screener did the exact same thing, but better.
Here is a great feature that is also included, a forex scanner to hunt for trading opportunities based on specific requirements you look for in a trade.
Looking for currency pairs where the 20 day moving average and 50 day moving average has crossed upwards?
No problem.
Here is a screenshot of the current screener options:
Although there are a few options, we have submitted some feature requests that we believe would improve their screeners.
So hopefully they get implemented too!
TradingView Pricing
The pricing is great.
To start off it’s free for 95% of the features that you would use each day.
However, if you are like me – you’d be happy to pay the small fee each month to get access to premium features — such as an increased amount of price alerts set up.
This feature alone pays for the annual subscription, easily.
You can certainly get away with using the free account, especially with our strategies.
However, if you are looking to take a break from the computer and want to set alerts like in our trading guides — then it’s a must just for the improved allowance of price alerts.
For example, I trade stocks and forex – I set up my trading day and set price alerts for several different assets per day.
This allows me more freedom away from the trading desk and able to react.
(They also get sent to you the mobile app version + email + pop up an alert if you have the charts loaded in the background)
If you’re interested in trying out TradingView Pro and would like to support our continued work then you can use the link below:
>> Get your free TradingView Pro Trial Here. <<
This supports us as we may receive a commission if you decide to subscribe to their service. (Thanks in advance! :))
You get 30-days to trial it out anyway, so it’s worth a shot.
TradingView Brokers List
One of the most convenient features is that you can trade directly from the chart with selected brokers.
As you may be fully aware already, timing a trade is essential.
However, this feature isn’t essential for everyone.
Back when I first looked at this platform, you couldn’t integrate your broker with them to trade from the charts.
Now, they have several brokers across the globe that use them.
Here is a TradingView brokers list:
– FXCM
– Capital.com
– OANDA
– TradeStation
– Gemini
– Saxo
These are currently the only brokers that integrate with the platform.
This is great because you can use the TradingView charts and trade within the platform itself.
Making life much easier.
If you can, grab an account with one of these brokers to combine their execution with TradingView charts.
This way, you will have probably the best retail trading set-up and a really low cost!
TradingView Social Trading
Another key feature is that you can view 1,000,000s published ideas from other traders using Tradingview.
You can see their entire thought process and analysis.
You can engage with them, post a comment as you would do on Youtube, and even use it to confirm a trading theory you may have.
Don’t blindly follow them though.
On the flip side:
You can post your trading ideas and it will track the idea’s performance.
You can have other people comment on them too.
This means you can have an even better learning experience through this feature, should you get the right support.
TradingView Trading Journals
A more subtle feature is you have access to a trading journal within the platform itself. This is great to monitor and track notes for technical/ fundamental analysis.
This is great for beginners as you can note down your entire thought process behind trade and upload it with the trade.
The journal is stored in the cloud, so you can always review it at any time and on any device.
This is a great feature for the traders who want to focus on the finer details and improve their trading.
TradingView Chat Rooms
Being a retail forex trader can be lonely, so there are chat rooms within the platform that is specific to each asset.
Want to chat about the EURUSD?
Join the EURUSD chat room.
Be careful and use caution in the chat rooms to avoid being sucked into “hot tips”.
To be honest, it fits nicely in the chart but if you have the luxury of having multiple monitors or a large screen – you can detach the chat room from the chart.
Real-Time Streaming Forex News
Some of you won’t dare look at the market news.
For those that do (congratulations), you can get real-time news streaming for free.
All within your chart, so no more running multiple tabs to acquire different news sources.
You get news announcements from Reuters mainly.
However, each news flow is different and ONLY relevant to the current asset you have loaded in your chart.
This. Is. Fantastic.
No more wasting time filtering around news events, now you get exactly what you need, when you need it.
Did you know you can set up your own free forex news sqwarker? Learn about Fintwit here.
Cloud Access To Charts
Cloud access may not seem like such an innovative way to chart anything in this day and age.
But trust me, if you have ever had a desktop platform reset and lost all your set ups/ support and resistance levels etc. you will surely appreciate this feature.
Being able to log in and get access to the same charts on any device is a Godsend.
TradingView Desktop App
TradingView was primarily set up for a web application.
You don’t need to download anything to run TradingView, apart from a web browser and access to the Internet.
That is one of the main reasons why it’s so good!
However recently they have released a beta version of the TradingView Desktop.
This has all the features on the web application but is accessed locally on your desktop.
This is excellent.
It works for both Windows and Mac-based computers.
TradingView App
Finally, thanks to cloud access, you can run all your charts on your mobile device too.
One cool aspect of this is that you can use the app for push notifications to your phone.
Admittedly, I have never been a fan of reviewing charts on my mobile device.
The screen is too small for my preference.
Or you have to use a chart set-up that is different from your own trading set-up.
However, the TradingView app has done a good job to ensure the charts are fluid and clear on mobile devices.
Plus, with all the platform accounts being connected – you never lose your work or your support and resistance levels – which is a game-changer for me.
TradingView Indicator List
For some of the most popular platforms, you would have to download extra programs to get access to specific indicators.
These could be badly programmed, or stop receiving updates, which leaves you in the dark.
With TradingView indicators, they are all cloud-based and accessible for free.
Here is a list of the free TradingView indicators available:
- Accumulation Distribution (ADL)
- Advance/Decline Line
- Advance/Decline Ratio
- Aroon
- Average Directional Index (ADX)
- Average True Range (ATR)
- Awesome Oscillator (AO)
- Balance of Power (BOP)
- Bollinger Bands (BB)
- Bollinger Bands %B (%B)
- Bollinger Bands Width (BBW)
- Chaikin Money Flow (CMF)
- Chaikin Oscillator
- Chande Momentum Oscillator (CMO)
- Choppiness Index (CHOP)
- Commodity Channel Index (CCI)
- Connors RSI (CRSI)
- Correlation Coefficient (CC)
- Cumulative Volume Index (CVI)
- Detrended Price Oscillator (DPO)
- Directional Movement (DMI)
- Donchian Channels (DC)
- Double Exponential Moving Average (EMA)
- Ease of Movement (EOM)
- Elder’s Force Index (EFI)
- Envelope (ENV)
- Fisher Transform
- Hull Moving Average
- Ichimoku Cloud
- Keltner Channels (KC)
- Know Sure Thing (KST)
- MACD (Moving Average Convergence/Divergence)
- Money Flow (MFI)
- Moon Phases
- Moving Average
- On Balance Volume (OBV)
- Parabolic SAR (SAR)
- Pivot Points Standard
- Price Oscillator Indicator (PPO)
- Price Volume Trend (PVT)
- Rate of Change (ROC)
- Relative Strength Index (RSI)
- Stochastic (STOCH)
- Stochastic RSI (STOCH RSI)
- TRIX
- True Strength Indicator
- Ultimate Oscillator (UO)
- Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP)
- Volume-Weighted Moving Average (VWMA)
- Williams %R (%R)
- Williams Alligator
- Williams Fractal
- Woodies CCI
- Zig Zag
As you can see from this list, there are A LOT of indicators on their platform.
You can even program and develop your own on their platform if you know how to code too.
One thing I will highlight is on the Free account, you can only have 3 indicators running at once.
So if you rely on technical indicators, you may want to upgrade.
TradingView Vs. MT4
The MT4 Platform is the legendary terminal interface used by millions of traders worldwide.
It is only fair to create a comparison between one of the most commonly used platforms by traders, to put in perspective how good TradingView actually is.
So, why would you intend to switch?
Here we will discuss the major benefits and negatives against the MT4 platform.
Features | TradingView | MT4 |
---|---|---|
Price | Free with Paid Upgrades | Free |
Technical Indicators | 50+ Built In + Bespoke Options | 20+ Built In + Bespoke Options |
Execution | Web Based | Desktop |
Platforms | Desktop, Mobile, Web | Desktop, Mobile |
Availability To Brokers | Limited | Wide |
Paper Trading (Free) | Yes | Yes, via Demo Accounts |
Economic News Feed + Alerts | Built In | Extra download required |
Price Alert Notifications | Yes | Yes, but limited to onscreen or email. |
Social Trading | Built In | Limited – extra downloads required. |
Updates | Frequent | Minimal |
Sync across all devices | Yes | No |
As you can see, the main features any trader requires both do well at – but as far as ingenuity and more tools for less… TradingView can be more rewarding.
Should you upgrade to TradingView Pro?
Tradingview Pro opens up more features for serious traders.
To be blunt, if you want to take forex trading seriously and want to use a well-rounded platform, then upgrading to pro is a must.
The features that are restricted on a free account might not be too taxing if you are someone who wants to plod along and check out some charts every now and then.
If you’re like me, who prepares for the trading day/week in advance and sets up price alerts and screeners for opportunities daily, then going pro is a no-brainer.
Here is a breakdown based on your experience you could use as a guideline to see if going Pro is good for you:
Beginner:
Not yet. The free tools and features you can get access to will be abundant for now.
However, if you want to backtest using their services – you have to go Pro.
Backtesting will certainly escalate and swiftly reduce the time to learn how to trade.
Trade with experience:
Again, you can get away with the free tools offered.
However, if you are making money and you can afford the monthly subscription – it’s a no brainer in my book.
You get access to:
– Quite possibly the best trading charts available for retail traders;
– Multi-asset access to market data that you would usually pay for;
– Easily integrates with your broker (if your broker is on the list);
– Monitor price alerts and the markets on any platform, anywhere, allowing you to have more freedom away from the computer;
– Never lose a chart set up again thanks to the cloud… Your important price levels and analysis will be available anytime, anywhere.
These are just a handful of benefits I believe you’d be crazy not to consider switching.
So overall, it’s worth the small investment for all of the added features mentioned above.
(Don’t forget, you can grab a 30-day free trial of TradingView Pro – just click here)
Don’t forget, when you join – follow our business account: Alphaex Capital
We’re going to be using Tradingview to educate and demonstrate examples from now on. So you can stay up to date by following our account.
TradingView Review 2023: The Verdict
There we have it, a definitive TradingView Review that covers all the major bases.
I strongly recommend giving it a try for any retail forex trader and transitioning away from legacy/older platforms.
This is, I believe, the future – I saw this project in its infancy and seen it grow… rapidly.
Like a snowball effect, rolling down the mountain, this web-based trading platform is getting better and better, with new and improved features to bolster your trading tools.
Now I want you to have a think about this review. What did you think of it? Is there something I missed?
Let me know by leaving a comment below.