My first transaction on Tradingview Pro went horribly wrong. I clicked “Buy” like I was getting food on Grab when I noticed a green candle and a line that looked like it was doing the cha-cha. Two hours later? The stock price stayed the same. I lost 90 RM. My little brother laughed so hard that he snorted his Milo. “What did you trade?” he asked. “That’s a penny stock from 2013!” Lesson one: not every light that flashes is a jackpot.
But I kept using it anyhow. Not because I’m stubborn (well, maybe a little). But TradingView feels like a live wire. When you plug it in, you may see more than just the market. You’re inside it. Sweating. Clicking. Getting new information. Hoping your Wi-Fi doesn’t go out during a breakout.
Malaysia has a strange fondness for trading. One minute you’re at a mamak, and someone is chatting about how much their kid’s school expenses are. Before you know it, they’re whipping out their phones, swiping to TradingView, and saying, “Look at this volume spike on MRDI.” Like everyone is a market detective on the side.
I once posted a suggestion on a public forum. Guy said he had figured out how to read Bursa’s after-hours routine. Used three oscillators, a lunar cycle reference, and something termed “wave divergence.” I didn’t get a word of it. But I did. Made RM200. Then he posted again, saying, “New signal—strong reversal coming.” I jumped in. The stock price went down by 12%. I sent him a message. “Hey, what happened?” He said, “Markets breathe.” Let it breathe. I put a stop to him. I took a screenshot of his chart and sent it to my cousin with the note, “This man thinks he’s Yoda.”
The tools aren’t the only thing that makes the app powerful. In the mess. There are retirees that are following dividend bets. Teenagers are using their lunch money to buy and sell bitcoin. Engineers are writing scripts that beep when the RSI reaches 74.7. A man in Penang built an alarm that only goes off if the volume surge hits between 2:13 PM and 2:17 PM. Why? He added, “That’s when the algorithms wake up.” I didn’t fight.
It looks bad. Sometimes it doesn’t work right. Your chart can stop working just as a stock goes up. You’ll swear. Start over. Don’t hit the summit. That’s how trading works. It’s not a fair fight. It’s more like attempting to capture smoke with a pair of chopsticks.
But when does it work? Magic. I saw a double bottom on a healthcare stock last week. Drew the lines. Waited. Price bounced off support like a kangaroo on a trampoline. Finished the trade. The money I made paid for my car insurance. I thought I had outsmarted the system. Until the next day, when I misunderstood a gap and lost half of it. Back to the drawing board.
People think TradingView is a crystal ball. No, it’s not. It’s a mirror. Tells you what’s going on. Doesn’t say what will happen next. But in Malaysia, where a single tweet can send a stock price up and murmurs can change the market, possessing that mirror? Worthless. Even if it costs you money sometimes.