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Chart trading

Placing, moving and cancelling orders by dragging them directly on a price chart, so working orders and stops appear as lines at their trigger levels.

It fits discretionary, level-based trading: if your stop belongs below a swing low, drag it below the swing low. The chart becomes the order entry surface and the position view at once.

Two cautions. Dragging is imprecise near the pixel level, so most platforms snap to the minimum-price-increment and let you type exact values. And an accidental drag is a live order modification, not a drawing edit.

Example: you drag a stop from 98.40 to 97.85 to sit below a swing low. On 300 shares that widens risk from $180 to $345, a 92% increase in risk-per-trade from a single mouse gesture. Good platforms show the new risk in dollars as you drag.

Related: hotkeys, depth-of-market, working-order, cancel-replace

See it drawn

Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.

Trend structure: higher highs against lower lowsTwo zigzag price paths side by side; the left one steps upward with each peak and trough above the last, the right one steps downward with each peak and trough below the last.UPTRENDhigher highs, higher lowsHHHHHHHLHLHLDOWNTRENDlower highs, lower lowsLHLHLHLLLLLLHH higher high, HL higher low, LH lower high, LL lower low.
How a trend is built. A trend is just a sequence of turning points. While each peak and each dip sits above the one before it the market is trending up; once both start landing below the previous ones the structure has turned down.

Educational only, not advice. Spotted an error? Post in Site Feedback.