TradingView TERMINAL
DOC BASICS Updated August 2026 · ~5 min · For TradingView desktop 3.2.1

Basics

Stocks, forex and crypto on one screen

One Screen

The terminal doesn't care what you're watching — BTCUSD, EURUSD and AAPL sit in the same watchlist and draw candles the same way. What breaks a beginner's head isn't the chart. It's that each market keeps its own clock.

Three markets, three clocks

  • Crypto trades 24/7. BTCUSD prints candles at 3am Sunday just like Tuesday noon — no gaps, no close.
  • Forex runs in sessions and shuts for the weekend: EURUSD opens Sunday 17:00 New York time and closes Friday 17:00. Most of the daily range lands in the London/New York overlap, roughly 08:00–12:00 ET.
  • Stocks trade only during exchange hours. AAPL's regular session is 09:30–16:00 New York time, with thinner pre-market (from 04:00) and after-hours (to 20:00).

Read a flat symbol correctly

In the watchlist every symbol carries a market-status dot — green when it's open, red when it's closed. Line the three up (see building a watchlist) and the differences jump out. On a 5-minute chart, AAPL over the weekend is a straight horizontal line — not a dead feed, the exchange is shut. The Friday-to-Monday gap is a session break, not a crash; the crypto chart beside it never gaps because it never stopped.

To see AAPL's pre- and after-hours bars, open the chart settings gear, go to the Symbol tab and tick 'Extended trading hours'. Those candles are real but thin — wide spreads, low volume, prints that don't always survive the regular open. Treat them as a hint, not a level.

Before you react: when a symbol looks frozen, check the status dot before you check your connection. Nine times out of ten it's just closed. Reading the bars themselves is a separate skill — see understanding quotes and OHLC.