TradingView Paper Trading: Practice and Review

How to paper trade on TradingView

Sign in and open Supercharts. The current main help page directs you to Trade in the upper-right corner, then Paper Trading → Connect. TradingView's separate connection guide also shows a Trading panel at the bottom. Use the connection list available in your interface and confirm the account name after connecting.

• Select the exchange-qualified symbol and chart interval you want to practice. Record both in your session notes.
• Check the active connection before submitting anything. A broker connection and the Paper Trading simulator are different accounts.
• Write a testable rule before watching for an entry: what must happen, what cancels the setup, and when you will exit.
• Start with an order size whose units you understand. Shares, contracts, and currency amounts are not interchangeable.

Set the practice balance and understand reset

Use the paper account settings to inspect the account configuration. Reset account lets you choose a new starting balance, currency, and leverage, but also removes orders, history, and open positions. TradingView states that this cannot be undone. Save any records you need before confirming the reset.

• Choose a balance for a defined exercise and record it. Changing the denominator midway makes percentage results harder to compare.
• To preserve an earlier experiment, use a separate paper account instead of clearing it, where the account controls offer that option.
• After a reset, record a new run ID and recheck the account settings. Do not combine the new balance with the old run's return calculation.

Include fees in the exercise

In account settings, check the commission configuration. TradingView documents a per-contract commission for futures and options, charged when opening and closing a position; this setting is off by default. Other instruments use the fixed or percentage commission options in the Other section. Set the applicable model deliberately.

• If copying a broker fee schedule, record its date, currency, and whether the quoted amount is per side or round trip.
• Keep spread and commission separate. A bid/ask difference is part of the execution prices; commission is an additional charge.
• Record any extra slippage allowance as your own analysis assumption. Do not imply that an adjustment in your journal changes the simulator's fills.
• A simulated result cannot establish the fills, liquidity, or decision-making pressure you would experience with real money.

Place an order, then verify what happened

Use the order ticket to check side, quantity, order type, and any stop-loss or take-profit levels before submitting. Record the actual fill when an order executes. The price you requested, the chart's latest price, and the fill price serve different purposes.

• Inspect pending orders as well as open positions. Submitting an order does not always create a position.
• After an exit, check the remaining quantity and pending orders before calling the exercise complete.
• Keep a short explanation for a cancellation or manual exit. It may be a valid rule application or a rule deviation.

Worked example: reconcile a simulated stock trade

This invented USD example demonstrates arithmetic, not an actual trade or a recommended position size. Assume 20 shares bought at an ask fill of $50.05 and sold at a bid fill of $51.00, with a hypothetical $1 commission on each side. There are no other trades, open positions, currency conversions, or costs in the example.

• The bid/ask effect is already represented in these assumed fill prices. Subtracting the same spread again would count it twice.
• TradingView generally fills buys at ask and sells at bid. A long position's displayed P&L uses bid against its average fill, so the last price on the chart may not reproduce it.
• If reviewing an additional $0.02 per share per side slippage scenario, deduct 20 × $0.02 × 2 = $0.80 separately. The adjusted $16.20 is a sensitivity calculation, not the recorded account result.

Review the decision as well as the result

Create a separate journal or clearly label these entries as Paper Trading. Enter the actual simulated fills first, then add the plan and deviations. Pineify Trading Journal supports manual trade entry, tags, and closing notes. Use those fields to preserve the context; this workflow does not assume automatic synchronization with TradingView.

• Keep profitable rule violations visible. A positive result alone does not show that the planned process was followed.
• Review skipped setups too, in session notes. Otherwise the journal cannot explain why a planned trade was never placed.
• Keep simulation records separate from funded trading records. Neither a short winning run nor a chosen trade count proves readiness for live execution.

Resolve common paper-trading misunderstandings

Check the account and execution context before changing a trading rule. These checks distinguish a configuration issue from a result that needs further investigation.