5 things you should never do on TradingView
Tradingview is a place where traders, investors, educators, and market enthusiasts can connect to share ideas and talk about the market. By actively participating in community engagement and conversation, you can accelerate your growth as a trader. There’s no better way to learn than by immersing yourself in an educational environment that exposes you to many different ideas and strategies. Retail traders are empowered by professional-grade tools, real-time data, and helpful ideas that were once only available to professional traders. Just look at how far we have come. Using TradingView can boost your knowledge of markets, methods, and techniques, while allowing you to perfect your charting and trading skills. Insights from the community can also help you make profitable decisions. Since trading involves risk, we developed a platform that provides everything you need to responsibly learn and improve as a trader.
We realize that in spite of our efforts and intentions, sometimes members use TradingView and its rich content incorrectly and do irresponsible things, inevitably leading to unmet expectations, lost money, and in some cases, hardship. We know the stories. We have heard their stories and have consoled members who have experienced these issues. Our community is rapidly growing, with over 10 million engaged traders visiting monthly and 1,000+ new members joining daily. Among them are novice traders. This topic is directed especially (though not exclusively) to them, because with common sense and forewarning, certain mistakes can be avoided. We unabashedly stand by our mission of transparency and accountability, so get ready for some real-talk based on real cases.
Before we continue, it’s important to note what TradingView is not. TradingView is NOT a signal service and NOT a marketplace for shady third-party content providers. TradingView is a place where people learn from each other and we strive to have every published idea to be meaningful, detailed, descriptive, and interesting. It’s our main goal as a platform. To better understand how to publish ideas that get maximum visibility, please read the post on gaining exposure and building a reputation. Publishing simple signals with little or no explanation contradicts the overall idea of the site. It’s better to ignore such authors because they probably want to sell you something. Every published idea should give you clear information on the particular trading method, giving you a chance to understand it and learn from it.
And now, without further ado, here are 5 things you should never do on TradingView.
1) Do not enroll in a training course from a highly rated member with the idea that it will make you profitable instantly.
Contributors are rated and ranked according to how the community values their contributions.
Their reputation shows how much engagement they generate and how active they are, but it doesn’t measure whether or not someone is a good trader or trainer. TradingView does not review, check, or guarantee any third-party services promoted on our site. So it’s really up to you to exercise due diligence before committing to a training course. Go to the member’s public journal and use our play feature on the last 100 ideas to see how they went. Request course details to review and ask prior students about their experience. Realize that even with decent training, it will take months of practice and a lot of dedication before you could be consistently profitable. And that’s if you have a knack for trading. There’s no magic pill. If you don’t want to investigate a course and are thinking of enrolling without doing some research first, it’s probably best not to enroll. Be smart about it, put in the effort, and you should be good to go!
2) Do not trade popular ideas with real money, expecting easy profits.
No matter how many likes an idea receives, no matter how confident its author may appear, or how high this person is ranked, there is no guarantee the idea will play out as planned. Period. So don’t put your money at risk while trying to copy someone else’s trade idea unless you have personally reviewed it, understand it, and it fits your strategy. If you have no strategy to begin with, then no idea will ever fit and therefore you should not risk your money. Because it is a big risk. The bottom line is this: someone else’s view should never be relied upon as a substitute for you doing your own analysis before making actual trading decisions. TradingView has a large idea repository for peer-review that can be used to help you develop and improve your own strategies. Check them out if you have a moment. But don’t mistake popularity for certainty. Avoid risking money by copying popular ideas as if their authors can see the future with certainty. You may win some, but over time, you will lose money. Now that’s a bad idea that you should avoid at all costs.
3) Do not ask for blind real-time signals in chat, aiming for fast gains.
Every day, we see members who come to chat and impatiently ask, “Can I buy EU now? Please?”, “Can I sell GU? Anyone?” or similar questions for other instruments. They open a real trade as soon as anyone gives an affirmative reply. You won’t learn anything from asking these questions if you don’t see at least a chart snapshot that you can review and either agree with or dismiss. Not knowing the track record or strategy of the replier further adds to this risk. Our public chats offer great opportunities to talk about real-time market conditions and allow you to participate in a fast-paced exchange of opinions, views, and analysis about where the market is going. Using them the right way will help you grow as a trader and help you find real opportunities to profit from. But making hurried trading decisions after asking for flimsy trade calls is irresponsible and will only lead to losses. Just don’t do it!
4) Do not buy signals or bots from members without having seen a verified track record.
TradingView has all the features to help you improve your own trading, but if for some reason you are looking to buy signals or “expert advisors” from a member: ask for a verified track record for a substantial period on a real money account. Otherwise you put your trading capital at unknown risk, which could end up being significant and lose you a lot of money. Not only for the purchase, but also for the funds in the trading account. Promises and sales pitches are no substitute for proven past performance. Remember, we don’t check or guarantee any services promoted by our members, but there are review sites online and you can always ask to be referred to satisfied members and check with them before committing. Asking for a free trial could further help reduce the risk. In any case, our advice is to never buy anything from anyone without substantial proof that it actually works. Just say no unless you’ve thoroughly vetted the offer.
5) Do not blindly follow someone else’s opinion on anything related to your trading.
The social network part of TradingView is big, so there is no lack of opinions on the market or on trading. Every day, you can find upwards of 12,000 chat messages, 750 ideas, 600 comments, and 500 snapshots with which other traders express their views. This social piece is top-notch, but with it comes risks for novice traders. The risks can include picking up bad habits from others, being swayed by popular opinion, and succumbing to peer pressure. There is also risk of doing something you have not given critical thought to, objectively analyzed, and/or evaluated yourself. These risks can include trading a money account before you are ready, following “insider tips” or vague hunches of others, overtrading due to the abundance of ideas, putting up bigger positions than your account can handle, and changing your mind mid-trade. Avoid these risks or you will end up self-sabotaging your account and your personal growth as a trader. Keep calm and think first!
The key driver behind these warnings is the realization that the only person responsible for your wins and losses is you. Not an author who publishes ideas, not a chat visitor who expresses a bias, and not a commenter who shares a tip. It is your money you are dealing with, so why would you put decisions regarding that money in someone else’s hands? Do your own analysis and if you don’t know how to do it, then learn first before making any money-related decisions. You don’t want to rush to try and win money because more likely than not, you will lose.
It may seem like tough love and a harsh reality, but we hope you appreciate our candor and our warnings of the possible dangers you may face. Keep yourself and your money well guarded. We at TradingView tell it like it is and it’s hard to find this level of openness in any other community. We have upheld this approach from day one and will continue doing so because we are proud of it. We hope you are too.