Paper trading — main functionality

Paper Trading is a demo trading to practice with no deposits and no real money involved—just your skills, tested in close-to-real market conditions. This risk-free simulator is a great way to apply both your technical and fundamental analysis as you build confidence and deepen your understanding of the financial markets.

CONTENTS:

What is paper trading
Why paper trade
How to activate your paper account
How to place a paper trade
The Leap

What is paper trading

Paper Trading, also known as demo trading, is a tool that lets you practice buying and selling assets using simulated money.

Developing a unique strategy is crucial—it should align with your personal approach, account for your stress tolerance, and perform well with the specific assets you plan to trade. With paper trading, the execution experience is identical to real trading, except you can train without any financial risk. Our system tracks your orders and positions in real time so you can evaluate the true profitability of your strategy while using all of our chart types, indicators, drawing tools, and analytical features.

Why paper trade

Markets are complex, and no single approach works in all conditions. Various analytical tools may even contradict one another: indicators, chart patterns, and fundamental metrics can behave differently depending on the market environment.

Paper trading gives you the freedom to experiment with different methodologies — from classic chart analysis custom Pine Script strategies — and see how your ideas perform under live market dynamics.

Whether you are day trading forex, futures, or crypto, or building a long-term stock portfolio, every asset class operates by its own set of rules. Practicing in a demo environment helps you discover what best fits your style.

How to activate your paper account

From Supercharts, click the Trade button in the top-right corner.

A list of available brokers will appear. Paper Trading is available globally for all users.

Select Paper Trading → Connect → and you're all set.

How to place a paper trade

Our simulator supports almost every asset class available on TradingView, including stocks, forex, crypto, commodity and index futures, and more.

You can place and manage orders using three primary interfaces:

Order ticket: A dedicated trading panel where you can enter detailed order parameters, such as side (buy/sell), quantity, order type (market, limit, stop), price levels, and risk management settings (stop loss and take profit).
Depth of market: An institutional trading window that displays active bid and ask orders at different price levels, allowing you to gauge market liquidity and execute trades quickly.
Chart trading: An intuitive feature that allows you to place, drag, modify, and close orders directly on the price chart without distraction.

The Leap

When you have mastered paper trading fundamentals and feel ready to test your strategy under competitive pressure, join The Leap — our global virtual trading competition where you compete against traders worldwide for real-money prizes.

The competition lets you evaluate the true effectiveness of your trading strategies on a public leaderboard.

Zero cost: No initial deposits, broker fees, or hidden charges are required to participate.
Real rewards: Top-ranked participants compete for cash prizes.

Note: Be sure to review the specific rules before entering each competition, as each edition of The Leap is unique and may specify different tradeable assets or risk parameters.

Paper Trading in a nutshell

Paper Trading is a completely risk-free simulator with no fees or catches — available to every TradingViewer to help master charting and trade execution.

Market analysis is a comprehensive discipline that takes time to learn. You will likely need to adjust and refine your strategy multiple times along the way. Take your time, test your ideas thoroughly, and avoid rushing to risk real capital.

Before transitioning to live trading, benchmark your skills in The Leap. Once you feel consistently confident in your market analysis and trade execution, you can select from our integrated partner brokers and take your trading journey to the next level.