In this guide, you’ll learn about all the different tools that are available to you on the chart. Specifically, we’ll be looking at the toolbars that are located at the top, bottom, left and right of the chart:
To summarize the chart above, the breakdown looks like this:
■ Top toolbar: Chart tools ■ Left-side toolbar: Drawing tools ■ Right-side toolbar: Community tools ■ Bottom toolbar: Advanced tools
Now, let’s dive into each one starting with the top toolbar where you’ll find many of the most important chart tools for all your research needs. Keep in mind that we’ve ordered each item below as if we are moving from the furthest point at the top left to the furthest point to the top right. Let’s begin!
⦿ Symbol Search (Keyboard shortcut: type the ticker) - Open the symbol search at the top left-hand corner to access over 100,000 global assets across equities, forex, crypto, futures, and more. - You can find them by their ticker (e.g., type RELIANCE for Reliance Industries) or by their description names (e.g., type the name Central to find CENTRALBK stock).
It’s also possible to find your favorite symbols with partial searches, that is, to write part of the ticker or description name and then select the corresponding asset in the search results. If you want to filter by asset type, you can select one of the following: Stocks, Funds, Futures, Forex, Crypto, Indices, Bonds and Economy (economic indicators).
⦿ Time Intervals (Keyboard shortcut: press ,) - Select the time interval for the chart. For instance, say you’re looking at a candlestick chart and you choose a daily chart. That means each trading day will be represented by 1 candle. - The most common time intervals are: 1m, 5m, 30m (intraday setups) 1h, 4h (swing trading setups) and 1D, 1W and 1M (long-term trading setups). - Traders can create custom intervals as well by clicking on the Time Interval arrow and then selecting the specific parameters needed. Don’t forget to add it to your favorites if you want it to be featured in the Quick Access toolbar.
⦿ Chart types - We have more than 15 chart types available to analyze all price movements, including the new HLC area, Line with markers and Step line. - Most traders prefer to use Bars, Candles and Area charts, but everyone has a different approach to markets. Be sure to find the chart type that fits your style.
⦿ Indicators, Strategies, and Metrics (Keyboard shortcut: press /) - Indicators, Strategies, and Metrics are designed to provide additional insight and information that may otherwise be difficult to see. - We have over 200 technical and financial indicators while also supporting over 100,000 custom scripts coded by our community. The best way to get started here is to start exploring the Indicators, Strategies, and Metrics menu as soon as possible.
⦿ Indicator Templates Here, you can save your custom indicator setups so that you can load them at any point in time. This tool is essential if you utilize different forms of analysis. For example, if you chart technicals and fundamentals, you can make two separate templates that can be loaded at any point depending on your need.
⦿ Alert (Keyboard shortcut: Alt + A) Alerts are used to create custom price alerts. Instead of watching markets 24/7, go ahead and create an alert at a precise level and then wait for that alert to trigger. Let our alerts do the heavy lifting. They’re always watching markets for you.
It is also possible to configure them different notifications so that you can be alerted through email, our free app or with a webhook.
⦿ Bar Replay Bar Replay is a powerful, yet simple tool for backtesting. All experience levels can use Bar Replay for backtesting, practicing or learning about price history. To get started, click the Bar Replay button and then select a historical moment to rewind the chart backward to that point in time. Then, you can press play or pause, and retrade that moment to see how your strategy performs.
⦿ Undo/Redo Scroll (Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Z / Ctrl + Y) Any changes made to the charts such as drawings or indicators can be deleted or recreated. This works just like a Word document you might create on Microsoft or Google. Use the keyboard shortcuts to quickly undo or redo specific actions.
⦿ Multi-chart Layout If you have an Essential, Plus, Premium, or Ultimate plan, you can analyze multiple charts on your screen at the same time. Simply choose one of the available layouts from the menu to get started. You can also synchronize symbols, intervals, crosshairs, time and data ranges with the selected layout.
⦿ Manage Layouts Create, rename and load all the layouts that you save. You can also share your layout and enable the autosave option, which is very handy so that all of your work is saved automatically. Managing your layouts is an essential part of your analytical process because it enables multiple different chart layouts to be accessed as quickly and easily as possible.
⦿ Quick Search Need to find a function or tool on your chart? Open and use Quick Search to do that. The name of the tool is just as it can be used: quickly search for the things you need to edit, add or remove on your chart, and do it in a flash.
⦿ Chart Settings This is where you can customize all of the fine details about your chart. The Chart Settings menu has everything from the chart color, to the gridlines and labels, the text of the scales, and more.
⦿ Fullscreen Mode (Shift + F) When this is enabled, you will see only the chart. To exit Full screen mode, click ‘Esc’.
⦿ Snapshot and Publish Here you can download your charts as images, copy links, share tweets, publish ideas, create live streaming video content, and comment on assets with our latest feature Minds. If you want to share your expert analysis or get feedback from others, you’ll surely want to learn how these social tools work. Go ahead and give it a try - join our community of traders.
Thanks for reading and we hope this post helps all traders and investors. Whether you’re an experienced professional or someone just getting started, we plan to create more guides like this to ensure you know how to maximize the features on our platform.
Next week, we’ll share part two of this series, and cover the drawing tools menu on the left-side of the chart.