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Tools & Data · Beginner · 4 min

Setting up charts: layouts, templates, alerts

You can set up a clean chart layout, save it as a template, organize a watchlist and create alerts so the chart watches the market for you.

Let the chart wait

Many beginners spend hours watching charts, waiting for a level to break or a setup to form. Most of that time nothing happens, and the waiting itself leads to impulsive trades.

Charting platforms can do the waiting. A clean layout makes charts quick to read, a template makes them consistent, and alerts tell you when something worth looking at happens. Setting this up once saves hours every week.

Layout, template, watchlist, alerts

Steps Setting up a chart workspace: a clean layout, saved as a template, a watchlist of the markets you follow, and alerts at the levels that matter. 1 Clean layout 2 Save template 3 Watchlist 4 Set alerts
  1. Clean layout. Candles, the one or two indicators your rules actually use, and the levels you marked. Everything else is noise. If a tool is not in your trading plan, remove it.
  2. Save a template. A chart template is a saved set of chart settings, such as colors, indicators and their parameters, that can be applied to any other chart. MetaTrader 5's help describes templates exactly this way, and web platforms offer similar saved layouts.
  3. Watchlist. A short list of the markets you follow. Fewer markets, known well, beat a long list you never study.
  4. Alerts. A price alert notifies you when the price reaches a level or a condition is met, by sound, push message or email, depending on the platform.

Check where your alerts run. On some platforms they run on the provider's servers and fire even when your computer is off. On others they work only while the program is open.

Alerts outside the range

Candle chart A fictional range between about 97 and 103 with two alert levels: one just above the range at 103.2 and one just below it at 96.6. Neither has been reached, so no alert has fired. Alert 103.2 Alert 96.6

In this fictional range between about 97 and 103, two alerts sit just outside the edges: one above at 103.2, one below at 96.6. As long as the price stays inside, nothing fires and no time is spent watching.

If the price breaks out, the alert fires and you look at the chart. Then your rules decide: is this a valid breakout setup, or a quick poke that may reverse? The alert itself is no signal to trade.

Placing alerts inside the range would be a mistake. The price touches levels there constantly, and frequent alerts are soon ignored.

Common mistakes

The takeaway

A clean layout, a saved template and a few well-placed alerts let the chart watch the market for you, so you look when it matters, not all day.

Check yourself

Quick quiz

4 questions. Instant feedback, nothing is saved.

  1. 1Tap the candle that came closest to the lower alert.

    Tap the chart.

    Candle chart Chart for the question: Tap the candle that came closest to the lower alert. Alert 103.2 Alert 96.6

    Candle 25 came closest to the lower alert, with a low of 97.03, but stayed above 96.6. The alert would fire only on a move below 96.6.

  2. 2What is a chart template?

    MetaTrader 5's help describes a template as a set of chart window parameters that can be applied to other charts.

  3. 3Why place alerts just outside a range rather than inside it?

    An alert should mark an event worth looking at, such as a breakout.

  4. 4What should you check about alerts on a desktop platform?

    Some alerts run on servers, others only while the platform is open. Know which you are using.

of 4 correct.

Sources

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