TradingView Bar Replay is a feature that you should take advantage of, especially if you don't have backtesting software like Forex Tester. In this post, I'll show you how it works and what it is good for.
If you prefer the text version, it is provided below the video.
TradingView Bar Replay Tutorial Video
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How to Get Started With Bar Replay
Turn Bar Replay On
To turn on Bar Replay, click on the icon in the toolbar at the top of the screen.
Adjust the Settings
After you turn it on, you will see a new toolbar appear on your active chart. You will also see a vertical red line appear where your cursor is.
The red line marks where the replay will begin, so do not click until you have scrolled back to where you want the playback to begin.
You can use the scroll control on your mouse the move the chart back or click and drag the chart to move it. Clicking and dragging will not set the start point.
Start the Replay
Once you have scrolled back to where you want to begin the replay, click once on the chart and you will be in Replay mode. Now click on the Play button to start the replay.
This is what it looks like:
That's it, simple right? Now let's take a look at how you can use this to improve your trading.
How it Can Improve Your Trading
There are a few different ways that this feature can help you improve your trading. If you can think of any other use cases, feel free to leave them in the comments at the end of this post.
Reviewing Your Old Trades
You can use the playback feature to analyze what a chart looked like before you entered a trade.
When you look at a trade a few days later, you will usually be able to see it from a more objective standpoint. This is because the emotion surrounding the trade has dissipated.
So a follow-up analysis of your trades could reveal what you do well and what you need to fix.
Backtesting
You could use this as a free backtesting platform. Of course, the currency pairs that you test would need to have enough historical data available. But if there is enough data to do a solid test, then you would just need a simple spreadsheet to track your trades and you are good to go.
Since TradingView makes it easy to do screenshots, it's also easy create flash cards of good setups, for later.
Practice
Another helpful use of this feature is to replay premium setups, so they get engrained in your brain. You can keep a spreadsheet of dates when good setups for your trading system happened and you can use this replay feature to play them forward a few times to get some practice, without going through the entire process of backtesting.
But There are Some Limitations
In reading the blog post about this feature and trying it out for myself, I found that there are currently a few limitations to Bar Replay.
- Some charts only have limited historical data
- Some charts like continuous futures do not work with TradingView Bar Replay
- You cannot create demo orders in Replay mode, only live trades with real-time data
- You cannot use Japanese charts
- Some indicators don't work
- You cannot use indicators that have a security function in playback
I consider these relatively minor though and I hope that they will remove some of these limitations in the future.
Final Thoughts on TradingView Bar Replay
It seems like TradingView might be building up to creating a manual backtesting product to rival software like Forex Tester.
That's just my guess, but it would be a logical progression from this Bar Replay feature. If that happens, it would be freaking fantastic!
As I mentioned here, it's about time that we get away from the antiquated Metatrader paradigm and start embracing progressive technology in Forex trading.
To learn more about all of the great features of TradingView, follow their blog.
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