7 Best Forex Charting Websites of 2024 (2024)

Every day across the world, millions of investors and traders use forex charts to assess price actions and historical market trends to plot potential future price trajectories. Charts are an important visual aid that can help forex traders analyze both the past and the present in the hopes of predicting a future outcome.

Even if you don’t believe in the importance of historical prices in predicting future trends, advanced charting tools can be useful. The best charting tools allow you to drag and drop trade orders directly on the chart, manage your risk/reward levels, and view economic calendar events plotted into the future. The availability and usefulness of these features will of course vary depending on the provider, broker, and/or platform you are using.

Typically performed within a forex chart, technical analysis is the study of historical market prices leading up to present market conditions. The goal of technical analysis is to identify potential trends and levels of support and resistance. Technical analysis can be conducted manually (using indicators, for example) or programmatically as part of an automated trading strategy that executes when certain technical conditions are met (again using traditional or custom indicators).

The most basic form of forex technical analysis involves drawing a simple horizontal trend line on a chart to denote where prices are supported or resisted. Diagonal trend lines, on the other hand, can capture ascending and descending market price movements while plotting potential future trajectories.

The best chart providers will let you choose from numerous chart types that are far more complex than your run-of-the-mill line charts (where an ascending line means prices are rising and a descending line means prices are falling). I’ve been using forex charts of all kinds for over 20 years; below you’ll find some helpful explanations of some of the most popular chart types for forex traders.

Common chart types

Tick chart

In a tick chart, every “tick” (represented as a bar) expresses a price update. There can be multiple price ticks per second, and the price changes can be small or significant. Tick charts are not bound by time like candlestick charts. Tick charts represent the smallest level granularity for measuring intervals.

Mountain chart

Mountain charts function similarly to line charts. If you take a line chart and fill in the space below the line with color, you have a mountain chart. The resulting visual resembles a mountain, and the ridgeline represents the historical mountain price.

Candlestick chart

A candlestick chart is a way to interpret data about open, high, low, and close (OHLC) pricing information for a given duration. The “wick” of the candle can extend above and below the main candle formation to denote the high and lows of a given session. The bottom and top of the candle represent the open or close. If the close is lower than the open, the candle will typically be colored a shade of red, whereas if the candle closed higher than the opening price of the candle it will usually be colored a shade of green.

Advanced chart types

Heikin-Ashi chart

Similar to the candlestick charts, Heikin-Ashi charts take into consideration the open, high, low, and close prices (OHLC) but go a step further by factoring prices from the previous period in an effort to average out the prices and create a smoother appearance. As a result, some more granular information may be lost, but the chart may be easier to read. Heikin-Ashi charts are still available at a wide number of brokerages but are not as popular as traditional candlestick charts. Heikin-Ashi are slightly more complex and typically favored by traders experienced with technical analysis.

Renko chart

Renko charts appear as a series of blocks (also known as boxes or bricks) that are set a 45-degree angle from each other resulting in diagonal lines that either ascend or descend (depending on market conditions). With Renko charts, the block size can be calibrated to represent a specific number of points or pips. For example, if you have a block size set to 10 pips or points, then the market will need to move up (or down) more than 10 points in order for a new block to appear on the chart.

Note: Renko charts are not bound to time like candlesticks charts. As such, if prices stay within your block range, then no new block will form until the market prices passes above or below that threshold (which may takes hours, days, weeks, or even months).

Point and Figure chart

Functionally similar to Renko charts, Point and Figure charts display a series of vertically stacked Xs or Os. Each stack is either all Xs or all Os, and the height of each stack is determined by the size of the market movement and the box size for each X or O. For example, if you set the box size to 10 pips and the market increases by 50 pips, you will see 5 vertically stacked Xs. If the market drops by 20 pips, a vertical stack of Os will form with 2 Os.

Kagi charts

Kagi charts are a sophisticated type of line chart, in which the line changes from thick to thin (and vice versa) as market conditions change. Kagi charts factor in previous highs and lows, and are based on a predefined, specified threshold. For example, if you specify a 10-pip threshold, the market will need to reverse from its current levels by at least 10 in order for the chart line to change from thick to thin.

Technical studies and indicators: The best charting providers for forex trading provide a comprehensive range of studies and dozens (in some cases, hundreds) of indicators that can be added to charts.

Indicators can be overlaid or added to charts in order to provide provide information via math formulas that can be complex or as simple as a moving average. For example, say you are looking at a daily candle chart with 50 days worth of candles. A simple 20-day moving average would compute the average across the last 20 days of prices and plot that as a line on your chart.

Algorithmic trading tools: Some charting providers will offer integrated algorithmic trading tools. These allow you to code your own strategy or select from a range of available automated trading strategies.

Data quality: The quality and accuracy of the historical forex price data from any chart provider can be an important factor when making calculations about potential future trajectories, as tiny deviations over time can lead to significant differences in the future. The best charting providers use high-quality tick data (which includes every single price update).

In my experience, the best way to use excellent charting tools for free is to open a demo account with one of the top forex brokers and access their trading platforms. Typically, you won’t need to include your credit card to open a demo account with the best forex brokers in the industry. Once you’ve created a demo account, you’ll be able to access sophisticated charting tools for web, desktop, and mobile – for free.

My go-to website for free forex charts is TradingView. Though there are some limitations (you can only add a few indicators per chart), traders using TradingView gain access to real-time market prices from a vast selection of providers as well as a wide range of tools for conducting technical analysis. Experienced traders and developers will appreciate that TradingView’s Pine Script programming language provides the ability to code algorithms for automated trading.

I’ve shared and published charts with my own technical analysis on TradingView’s social network in the past, and I appreciate that you can go back and replay those charts to see how the analysis subsequently unfolded.

Forex chart websites for beginners

It’s worth noting that TradingView could be overwhelming to beginner forex traders or someone who is brand new to using forex charts. For traders who are just starting to get familiar with forex charts, I’d recommend checking out Yahoo Finance or Google Finance. Both of these financial news powerhouses deliver bare-bones (but usable) forex charts.

Below you'll see a basic chart of the EUR/USD currency pair from Yahoo Finance as well as a mountain chart on Google finance.

If you are just getting started as a forex trader and you are curious about forex charts, I’d recommend checking out some basic charts (like on Yahoo Finance). If, however, you want to dive deeper into the vast world of forex charting, dozens of the best forex brokers offer powerful charting options for free. I also recommend checking out third-party charting technology providers such as TradingView, MetaTrader, and cTrader.