How to Do Paper Trading in TradingView? Is it Worth Your Effort?

Paper trading is a pretty cool way for beginner traders to go through the intricacies and nuances of stock market, forex, and commodity trading without losing real money.

There are many premium and free paper trading simulators in India, but the famous charting platform TradingView accommodates an impressive and fully free paper trading facility that lets you place virtual trades that cost you nothing and break your bank walls even if you fail.

Well, the primary purpose of paper trading, as you may know, is to learn how trading works, not earn money.

Unfortunately, TradingView only supports paper trading in equities and their futures, not index futures and options, one of the more attractive trading instruments for day traders in India and across the world.

Try Out Paper Trading in TradingView Here

In this article on how to do paper trading in TradingView, I would like to introduce you to how to set up paper trading in TradingView and whether it is worth your effort to become a profitable trader in the real market at the end of the day.

How to Do Paper Trading in TradingView?

1. Get into the TradingView website at https://in.tradingview.com/chart

2. Create an account with the user’s credentials. You can use your Google and social media accounts for easy signup. 

3. Get into the Trading Panel tab at the bottom of the page, below the charts. You can see the option to add your trading broker there to directly place trades from the platform (for real trades).

4. Find Paper Trading by TrawingView there and enable it.

5. That is all. You are ready to go. You can now start paper trading right from the charts of Indian stocks.

Is Paper Trading on TradingView Free?

Yes, it is free for all those who sign up for an account on TradingView.

TradingView is actually a premium platform for traders and investors to watch the charts of stock, commodity, and currency markets with incredible accuracy and responsiveness.

But you don’t need to be a premium user of the platform if you are a beginner. The charts are available for free, as is its paper trading platform.

The premium plan is for advanced and professional users.

Is TradingView Paper Trading Worth It?

Since it is free for all, it is indeed worth an effort as far as the cost is concerned, especially when most other paper trading platforms in India cost you a minimal amount per month to use the service and utilize the virtual capital.

But one major shortfall of TradingView virtual trading, in my view, is that you can only paper trade stocks and not options. Buying and selling stocks are possible, but there are no options, options chains, and so on.

Yet another downside is that you get virtual money for trading in the US dollar, which means you will see the profits and losses as well in dollars, not Indian rupees, which is against what you will see in the real market later.

Personally, I find it very annoying, as it results in an emotional disconnect. You must go for an Indian-based paper trading platform to see the capital in INR and execute the trades in the same currency, which can only meet your key purpose of learning paper trading, I think.

What is Paper Trading?

Paper trading is all about practicing trading in a real-life environment without real money.

The name paper trading originated from the way investors in the past used to hypothetically place trades, mark them on paper, and tally up their returns after.

Paper trading in the digital era has obviously become a virtual product.

A lot of premium paper trading apps and software are available on the web, with which you can train yourself to become a trader by getting familiar with the movements of the market before starting to invest your real, hard-earned money in the process.

Advanced virtual paper trading platforms like TradingView and Neostox help you learn to trade in real-world situations. You get a good amount of virtual money over there, and you can use it to place the trades of your choice with no worry about losing something with your inexperience and little knowledge about market movements.

In my personal experience, these platforms are super good for someone to get a clear picture of the real market in a virtual world. You can certainly develop some skills in trading if you do paper trading with seriousness.

It is a fact that it doesn’t help improve your trading psychology, but you get a chance to travel with the real market in a virtual world without making a dent in your bank vault at the end of the day.

Paper Trading Advantages

Your Money is Safe

Yes, with no use of real money, you are saving your capital before learning the basics of trading. Without clearly understanding how the market works – whether stocks or options – you are really going to lose your capital, at least at the beginning levels.

Risk-Free Learning

That is indeed the very purpose of paper trading. You get a chance to learn how the charts run and how the prices move without spending or losing real money.

Unlimited Virtual Capital

Most copy trading platforms in India, including TradingView, offer a good amount of virtual credit to trade. You can also increase the amount with an upgraded plan if you wish to test trading with larger amounts.

Game-Like Experience

Paper trading is a game-like experience. You can keep trading in the same style as you play your favorite games. In the meantime, you can learn to trade over a period of time.

What’s more, aside from these regular paper trading platforms and apps, we have some sophisticated stock market simulator games like TradingLeagues. Co-founded by one of the co-founders of Upstox, a leading brokerage firm in India, it is a wonderful way for beginners to practice trading in a full-game-like environment.

Paper Trading Disadvantages

No Emotion Involved

That is the major disadvantage of paper trading.

As you might know, emotion is a vital part of trading. Managing and controlling emotions is the key factor that determines if one can become a good and profitable trader.

As per most professional traders, emotional capital is a little more valuable than financial capital in trading, especially intraday, options, and futures.

So with no real money deployed, there is never going to be an emotional touch in paper trading.

In paper trading, you may even forget to have a look at the running trades if you get busy with something else, but in real trading, you will be highly attached to the trades, and you will have an eye on them whenever they are running.

Subscription Required

Though there are many free paper trading platforms like TradingView, which is limited to stocks only, you will have to pay a monthly subscription for the platforms that offer options trading.

They also offer free plans, but they are not highly responsive, which means you will have to wait a while for the premium and stock price changes to reflect in your trades.

Meanwhile, the paid plans provide real-time data, which makes paper trading more attractive.

My Paper Trading Experiments

To be frank, I thought seriously about the need for paper trading after making some big losses in my entry into trading.

I was indeed one of the people who made it into real trading without learning much about it in detail, or I seriously thought I was a person fit for throwing money into trading and coming up with good returns.

That was all wrong. After spending six months with some small profits and big losses, I started with paper trading and continued it for a pretty long period along with my writing and blogging career.

I just followed my trading strategies in paper trading with no worry about the loss of capital and slowly learned to manage the trades, especially the popular strategies in options trading, before making a comeback to the real market after one and a half years, I think.