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Paper Trading — main functionality

Paper Trading is a risk-free trading simulator with no deposits and no real money involved — just your skills, tested in close-to-real market conditions.

It's a great way to apply both your technical and fundamental analysis as you build confidence and deepen your understanding of the financial markets.

In this article, we'll dive into what the TradingView Paper Trading functionality has to offer.

CONTENTS:

What is Paper Trading

Paper trading, also known as simulated trading, is a tool that lets you trade with "paper" money and practice buying and selling assets.

Everything is essentially the same as if you were trading with real money, except that you can train yourself in trading without risk. Our system tracks your orders and positions, so you can see how profitable your strategy is.

Simulated trading is a common starting point for many traders. We've built our Paper Trading for you to explore the tradingverse with all of its chart types, indicators, drawings, and many other tools.

We always state that developing a unique strategy is crucial — it should align with your personal approach, take into account your stress-resistance, and perform well with the assets you're willing to trade.

Why paper trade

Before risking real money, why not test your strategy with Paper Trading? It's the safest way to see what actually works for you.

Markets can be really complex, and there's no approach perfect for all conditions. Technical and fundamental analysis offer powerful tools, but they often contradict each other. Indicators, drawing tools, and metrics all behave differently depending on the asset, and the market state.

Paper Trading gives you an opportunity to experiment with different methods — from standard chart analysis to custom Pine Script® indicators and strategies — and see how your ideas perform in real-time scenarios.

Whether you're day trading forex, futures, crypto or building a long-term stock portfolio, every asset class has its own rules. Practice helps you find what fits.

It takes time to shape a reliable strategy, and Paper Trading is the tool to help you with this.

How to activate your paper account

To start your trading journey, navigate to the Trading Panel located at the bottom of the Supercharts.

There, you'll see brokers available in your region. Paper Trading is available everywhere, for everyone — you'll never miss it.

Click on the "Paper Trading" icon and click "Connect" — and you're all set for simulated trading.

What is Trading Panel

Located on the bottom toolbar, the Trading Panel is the space where you can configure your account, track your orders and positions, and place orders. Before we jump into the latter, let's walk through the information you can find here.

The Trading Panel consists of:

  • Account manager
  • Order Panel
  • Depth of Market diagram

Account manager

Here, you can change your account settings, track your orders and positions, and choose the display of the information in the Account summary row.

Trading settings

To change your brokerage and adjust your trading settings, click "Paper Trading" in the upper part of the Account manager.

In "Trading settings…", choose values you want to be displayed on your chart. Try turning on and off the "Buy/sell buttons," "Positions," "Orders," etc. — find the configuration you're most comfortable with.

From there, you can also configure instant order placement. This feature allows you to place market buy and sell orders in just a click. To learn more about this, you may want to explore how to trade on TradingView — and find other tips that can enhance your trading capabilities.

From there, you can also customize the summary row:

  • Account balance: Total amount of your funds
  • Equity: Total amount of your funds plus your unrealized profits and losses
  • Realized profits and losses: Shows how profitable your closed positions are
  • Unrealized profits and losses: Shows how profitable your active positions are
  • Account margin: Funds used to keep your positions open
  • Available funds: Funds you can trade with
  • Orders margin: Funds needed to execute your orders

Also, if you're using tools for quantitative analysis, you can export your trading data as a CSV file.

If you don't want to log out of your Paper Trading account, click "See the brokers list…", to see which one is available in your region.

In the "Accounts:" section, you can create a new account and switch between your multiple Paper Trading accounts.

Account settings

Once you've connected to Paper Trading, you can start placing orders and trade.

Your paper account starts with $100,000 US in paper money and pre-configured leverage for different asset types:

  • Stocks: 1:1
  • Futures: 20:1
  • Forex: 50:1
  • Crypto: 10:1
  • Others: 50:1

However, you may want to adjust your Paper Trading account's default settings.

To do that, find the gear button near your account's name.

From there, you can change:

  • Leverage for different asset types
  • Commission per contract for futures
  • Commission type — a particular money value or a percentage of your trades

Learn more about how to set leverage in Paper Trading and customize your account to fit your trading needs.

Account reset

Another way to change your account settings is by resetting it.

! Note: You can't undo an account reset.

With the "Reset account" button you can change:

  • Balance: You account starting "fake" currency amount
  • Currency: Choose any of 20+ available, from fiat to crypto
  • Leverage: How much more you can trade with these asset types

Account reset will also delete:

  • Orders: Every placed, filled, cancelled, rejected, and active orders
  • History: Both trading and account history (balance before and after trades, P&L, traded assets, etc.)
  • Positions: Long and short open positions

If you want to start over but without losing your current paper account, you can always create multiple Paper Trading accounts. This feature allows you to follow different strategies while trading different asset types and see which one works for you.

To remove your additional accounts, in the account settings menu, click the bin icon.

How to track your orders and positions

Next are "Positions," "Orders," "History," "Account history," and "Trading journal."

! Note: These tabs in the Account manager are different for each broker. This information is relevant to Paper Trading only.

  • Positions: Displays your active positions in all the assets for the current Paper Trading account
  • Orders: Displays your orders for the current Paper Trading account
  • History: Displays the information about all your filled, rejected, and cancelled orders, as well as used margin, placing and closing times, and more
  • Account history: Displays the information about your closed positions, with their entry and closing prices, realized P&L, and more
  • Trading journal: Displays textual information about your orders and their times

How to place a paper trade

Our simulator works with many asset types available on TradingView — you can trade stocks, forex, crypto, commodity and index futures, and much more.

Placing trades via the Order Panel

After you've chosen what you want to practice with, find the "Trade" button, which will open the Order Panel.

With the Order Panel you can place orders through the Order Ticket or Depth of Market.

In the Order Ticket, you're able to place the following order types:

  • Market: To place this type of order, you need to set only the number of units you want to buy or sell. They are executed instantly at the best market price. These orders always get filled
  • Limit: To place this type of order, you need to set both the number of units and the limit price at which you wish to buy or sell a set number of units of the asset. These may not get filled due to lack of market liquidity
  • Stop: Also called stop-market orders, these are placed in the Paper Trading system only after the asset's price reaches the price you've set. Before that, the order is not placed — it's only submitted. If the asset's price reaches the stop level, these orders get fully filled at the best market price. May not get executed, as the price may not reach the defined level, and thus filled.

Placing trades from the Supercharts

One of the main features of TradingView is chart trading. It helps you conduct your analysis and trade right from the chart simultaneously. It works with both Paper Trading and other brokers and exchanges.

To stay focused on your analysis and place orders while charting, explore our complete guide on how to trade on TradingView.

The Leap

When you've learned how paper trading works and feel ready to test your skills on another level, join The Leap — our virtual trading competition with your fellow traders from all around the world and real-money prizes up for grabs.

It allows you to find out the effectiveness of your trading strategies and compare your results with others while competing for a prize.

No initial deposits, no broker fees, or hidden charges are needed to compete for real-money prizes.

Take your chances to become one of our champions. Make sure you explore The Leap rules before starting, as each competition is unique and allows for trading different assets.

Paper Trading in a nutshell

Paper Trading is a risk-free trading simulator. No fees, no tricks — available for every TradingViewer to study both charting and trading.

Technical analysis is a comprehensive study, which may take time to learn. You'll probably need to adjust your strategy, and not once. We recommend you take your time and don't rush to risk your hard-earned money.

Explore our other guides on trading and charting tools in our Knowledge base to make your trading flexible and build your confidence in markets.

Before diving deep into real money trading, test your skills in The Leap — our risk-free worldwide trading championship.

After you learn technical analysis with TradingView and feel confident in the markets, you can choose any of our top brokers and take your journey in the tradingverse to the next level.

Wishing you market success!

— Team TradingView

Also read:

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Can I trade on Extended hours?