Curriculum

Trading Charts

Cryptocurrency Trading

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TradingView.com (TV)

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TV Indicator Algo

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Video lesson

Chart Timeframes

Chart Timeframes: A Beginner’s Guide

In the world of trading, understanding how to effectively manipulate chart timeframes is not just an essential skill—it’s a game changer. This lesson dives into the importance of accurately setting time intervals and ranges on your charts, revealing how these concepts apply not only in traditional finance but also in the ever-evolving landscape of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. With the right knowledge, you can harness charting techniques to enhance your trading strategy, whether you’re investing in stocks or delving into the vibrant world of digital currencies.

Core Concepts

Let’s break down some vital terms and concepts that will help you master chart timeframes:

Chart Timeframe: This refers to the period over which price movements are displayed on a chart. In traditional finance, it’s common to use timeframes like minutes, hours, days, and weeks. In crypto, similar timeframes are used, but due to the highly volatile nature of digital assets, traders often utilize shorter intervals for greater responsiveness to price changes.
Candlestick: A candlestick provides a visual representation of price movements for a specific timeframe. Each candlestick reveals opening, closing, high, and low prices. In crypto trading, the candlestick chart is prevalent as it allows traders to make quick decisions based on historical price action.
Zooming In/Out: This action allows traders to focus on short-term price movements or broader trends within the market. In traditional finance, this can reveal market sentiment over different periods. In crypto, the ability to zoom in and out can be the difference between seizing a fleeting opportunity or missing out due to volatility.
Custom Range: This feature lets traders select specific start and end dates to analyze a particular period. While it offers detailed insights in traditional finance, in crypto contexts, it can show the impact of market events, such as halving or major updates in blockchain projects.
Go-To Tool: This tool enables traders to jump directly to a specific date on the chart. Understanding how to use this feature can save a lot of time when researching important market movements. In cryptocurrency, pinpointing dates can help analyze the aftermath of pricing events like regulatory news.
Year to Date (YTD): This term refers to the performance of an asset from the beginning of the year to the present date. In the crypto market, YTD performance can help gauge how well an asset has performed during a specific year, crucial for evaluating investment strategies.
Time Zone Settings: Account for market open times by setting the correct time zone on your trading platform. This applies just as much to traditional markets as it does to crypto exchanges, where trading hours can vary.

Understanding these concepts is vital for anyone stepping into trading, whether in traditional avenues or the dynamic universe of cryptocurrencies.

Key Steps

1. Mastering Your Chart Controls

Basic Controls: Familiarize yourself with key buttons for zooming in, zooming out, and dragging your chart.
Mouse Navigation: Utilize your mouse wheel or trackpad to enhance navigation seamlessly.

By using these controls, you effectively manipulate the display of data, optimizing it for your unique trading style.

2. Utilizing Time Ranges

Set Fixed Time Ranges: Use predefined options like “”YTD”” or “”one month”” to quickly analyze performance.
Hover Tooltips: Take advantage of tooltips that display information on what each time range setting includes.

This knowledge empowers you to pinpoint trends and performance statistics without getting overwhelmed.

3. Customizing With Go-To and Custom Range Features

Go-To Button: Use this to jump to a specific date easily, saving you time in research.
Custom Range Selection: Choose two dates to focus your analysis, honing in on important events or trends.

The ability to navigate both specific and broader timelines provides insights into price behavior that are crucial in both spheres.

4. Exploring Time Zone Settings

Time Zone Selection: Adjust your chart to reflect the time zone most relevant to your trading.
Sync Below-Chart Settings: Ensure alignment of your time settings for comprehensive chronological insights.

Your selected time zone affects how you interpret data, especially important when trading in a worldwide ecosystem like crypto.

5. Understanding Chart Types and Data Display

Candlestick vs. Line Charts: Choose the type that best shows the data you need for your analysis.
Data Intervals: Each type displays information uniquely (e.g., each candlestick represents a fixed time interval).

These decisions can alter how you read market signals, impacting your trading choices significantly.

6. Resetting Your Chart View

Auto-Reset: Familiarize yourself with how to reset your chart to default settings when necessary.
Default Values vs. Custom Configurations: Understand when to revert to official settings from personal adjustments.

A reset option allows flexibility in analyzing from different perspectives without clutter.

Crypto Trading

Understanding how traditional financial concepts apply to the cryptocurrency realm can enhance your trading expertise:

Chart Timeframes: While both traditional and crypto trading utilize various timeframes, crypto often demands a quicker pace due to its volatility. Shorter intervals allow traders to make faster decisions and capitalize on rapid price changes.
Candlestick Patterns: In both sectors, specific candlestick formations can predict future price movements. However, crypto might require more attention to patterns, given the quicker shifts in market sentiment.
Custom Range vs. Events: The go-to tool becomes even more critical in crypto as significant events (like regulations or technological advancements) can cause sharp price movements, necessitating targeted retrospective analysis.

Real-World Applications

As you navigate through timeframes, you’ll notice their influence in both traditional markets and the crypto ecosystem.

For example, during the Bitcoin halving events, customizing your chart to track performance post-halving provides insight into historical price movements. Similarly, understanding how traditional earnings reports influence stock prices can translate to analyzing how new blockchain initiatives might affect token prices.

Challenges and Solutions

No journey is without hurdles—understanding timeframes can sometimes be daunting. Many newcomers might misuse zoom features or fail to customize ranges effectively, leading to oversight in crucial trading data.

In the cryptocurrency world, volatility can pose an additional challenge, as even minor shifts can lead to major gains or losses. Using blockchain technology can enhance transparency and provide real-time data, allowing traders to make informed decisions rapidly.

Furthermore, a common misconception is the belief that crypto trading operates under the same fixed patterns as traditional finance. This is often misleading due to the ever-evolving nature of digital assets. Familiarizing yourself with the unique features of trading platforms can help you navigate these complexities.

Key Takeaways

Understand Your Chart Controls: Essential for effective data navigation.
Utilize Time Ranges: Helps you quickly view historical performance.
Leverage Go-To Feature: Saves time when analyzing past events.
Set Your Time Zone: Ensures accurate data interpretation.
Adapt Chart Types: Choose between candlestick and line charts based on your analysis needs.
Custom Range Insights: Zoom in on important periods to assess impactful events.
Stay Agile: Adapt to the fast-paced changes in crypto.

These insights will not only inform your trading strategy but actively empower you to engage with the blockchain ecosystem intelligently.

Discussion Questions and Scenarios

How does customizing your chart range enhance your understanding of market trends?
Compare the effectiveness of using a candlestick chart versus a line chart in analyzing crypto prices.
What challenges do you foresee when using timeframes in volatile markets like crypto?
Describe a scenario where knowing the exact date of a past market event could influence your trading strategy.
How can time zone settings impact your trading decisions in cryptocurrencies?
In what ways do you think your approach to trading might differ when leveraging longer vs. shorter timeframes?
How might understanding traditional finance charting methods help you succeed in the crypto space?

Glossary

Chart Timeframe: Duration over which price movements are displayed.
Candlestick: Visual representation of price action for a specified timeframe.
Zooming In/Out: Adjusting the focus on a chart to see shorter or longer-term trends.
Custom Range: Creating a specific start and end date for chart analysis.
Go-To Tool: Allows direct navigation to a specified date on the chart.
Year to Date (YTD): Performance measurement from the beginning of the year to the current date.
Time Zone Settings: Configuration that aligns chart data with specific geographic times.

As you dive deeper into these concepts, remember that a solid foundation in charting will serve you well in both traditional and cryptocurrency markets.

Continue to Next Lesson

Your quest for knowledge in finance, technology, and cryptocurrencies is just getting started! Ready to level up your skills? Let’s continue with the next lesson in the Crypto Is FIRE (CFIRE) training program.

Read Video Transcript

How To Zoom, Move, and Change Timeframes: Chart Tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSMHOxapC0A

Transcript:

Traders, this is an incredibly important video because we are going to be telling you about how to create time ranges on your chart and also how that works with the time intervals at the top and all of the options available to you to create the most perfect chart for your needs. So two quick things to pay attention to is that you have the capability to zoom out, as you can see here with these helpful buttons right here.

There’s also some keyboard shortcuts as well. So if you hover your mouse, you’ll see the keyboard shortcut right there. We’re on a Mac, so it’s going to be Command-Press-Up. We can zoom in. If you also have a mouse wheel or a mouse trackpad, you can use two fingers to push up to zoom out or pull forward to zoom in.

You can also click and then drag your chart across or drag your chart across again. We’re clicking and holding when we do that. So those are two key points to creating a chart that works for you, specifically making sure you have the perfect time range on your chart.

Now there are some other helpful tools as well for your time range because you can compress the calendar at the bottom here as needed or expand it or zoom in as needed as well. We are just clicking and holding and then dragging our mouse to do that to the time scale. So now you know the basics of zooming in, zooming out, of pulling your chart across or forward. It’s all here for you.

But we’re really just getting started because now we want to show you these time ranges at the bottom as well. These are really effective tools to quickly see data over a specific period of time. A personal favorite is year to day or year to date. You see it says YTD. So if we click this button, our chart instantly takes us to the start of the current year. There it is, the start of 2024 and shows us the latest price.

This means we can track performance since the start of the year right here, right in front of us perfectly. If our chart ever gets messy or messed up or shows a different range, well, let’s go right back to our YTD chart just like that. Now, you probably guessed it. That’s exactly what these other labels mean as well.

Let’s look at the last one year of trading. We click one year. Let’s look at the last five years of trading. We click five year. Let’s go into one month of trading. We click one month. Now, you’ll notice when you hover your mouse over these time ranges, you see it says three months in one hour intervals.

So it’s already preset for you six months in two hour intervals, year to date in one day intervals. So when we click three months, well, now we are getting three months right here in one hour intervals. So our chart is set to candlesticks and our intervals are set to one hour.

Each candlestick shows one hour intervals so our chart is set to candlesticks and our intervals are set to one hour each candlestick shows one hour of trading and we can see that from a very detailed view if we go to year to date it says year to day and one day intervals you can see now our chart says a daily chart each candle represents one day of trading this works for any chart type so even if it’s a line chart each price point here represents a day so you’re just moving along the price chart here each day at a time let’s go back to candles okay we are really just getting started here because a

favorite tool is the go to button you can also see here you’ve got your keyboard shortcut there as well. We click go to. Now that we have our go to button selected, we have two really important features to show you. We can go to a specific date or we can create a custom range.

First of all, we are going to show you going to a specific date. And yep, you guessed it. This is exactly what it sounds like. You can go to any point in time and the chart will automatically show you that point in time and show you what’s available on the chart. Keep in mind you have this helpful calendar here as well so you can use the arrows to go backward or forward.

A great example is let’s just look at this USDJPY chart and go back to July 5th. This is quite literally all we have to do is click the arrows here july 2023 click the fifth we also could type the date in as well ourselves if we wished let’s click go to and here we are what’s really great about this feature is it even shows you the exact date you were looking to go to right there look at this label so if you were going back in time to study something to look up an important event an earnings report an economic event some news article you can type that date into the go

to button be taken back in time and see this perfect label right here okay now that you understand the go to button and the date feature let’s go to the custom range feature and you guessed it that’s exactly what it sounds like. You get to create your own custom range. This tool allows you to specifically hone in on two points in time.

The first date is your starting point. The second date is your ending point. So let’s, for example, go back to 2023. But let’s go back to June. And then let’s go back to the 10th, June 10th. And now let’s say we want to also go back to june and then let’s go back to the 10th june 10th and now let’s say we want to also go back to june again but this time we want to go back to the 15th so we are telling the trading view platform to show us june 10th as the starting point june 15th is the ending point

and that’s all we want to see now we click go to and just like that we are zoomed in this daily candle one two three four five five days of trading each date right here in front of us And just like that we are zoomed in this daily candle 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Five days of trading each date right here in front of us.

And if we wish we could zoom out to get a better feel for where we are. But we had just created that custom range right from the go to button. Keep in mind in this custom range we can still use the calendar tools as well to get to where we need. In fact if we wanted to we could go back in time quite a ways to pick our first starting point. So that is the go-to button in how you can use it.

You may want to go back in time to study a trading period. Maybe you want to look back at trades you did over a period of time. Maybe you want to go to a specific point in time. That’s all possible from the go-to button. So now what you’re starting to grasp here is all of the features you have to create the perfect time range for you using your chart intervals as well.

One final tip just because this demo is all about times on TradingView is pay attention down here to your time zone. Click this and you can select the time zone of your choice. As you know, my name is Steph. I’m recording this from New York City. I like to have New York selected for that very reason. After all, it’s where I’m recording from, so that’s the time I want to see.

But if I wished, I could have Exchange selected, so it would automatically show me the exchange time. But for now, we’re going to select New York, even though indeed we have so many other options globally. Also, never forget that in your chart settings menu, there are some additional time features that you can take advantage of. You can change your time as well from here.

You can add specific decimals to your data modification. And also, if you wish, you can go to your scales and lines to highlight or show some levels related to different periods in time, like previous day close or pre or post market. We’ve got tons of videos on our YouTube page about this. So be sure to go check out our YouTube page, subscribe, watch these videos or read about it in our help center.

So that, ladies and gentlemen, wraps up our video, and we hope you learned something new. And it all starts with understanding your time ranges down here at the bottom, your special go-to feature to create custom ranges, the ability to make sure your chart time zone is synced to your liking, then of course the capability to select which time interval you want, which is how the data will be displayed. If it’s candlesticks, each candlestick represents a day.

If it’s a line, each dot or point or plotted point represents a day. And then of course, you should know how to drag your chart either direction, how to zoom in with your mouse, how to zoom out with your mouse, or even just use these buttons in front of you to do exactly what you need as well, moving to the left or to the right.

And actually one rather helpful point of view here, and it’s related to the auto button here as well, is this reset chart view, which you can click at any point in time to reset your view. So ladies and gentlemen, traders all over the world, thank you for watching. We know this video will get you started. You may have also learned something new.