How Do Compounding, Fees and Inflation Change an Investment?
Follow a fictional $1,000 example to see how compounding, ongoing fees and inflation change the result. Practice without buying an investment.
Investing Guides
Free lessons on investing basics, stock charts, financial statements, cash flow, and valuation. Choose a starting point below, or browse the latest guides.
Completely new to investing? Start the free four-part beginner course with What Is a Stock. No investing account or paid tool is needed.
Before committing money, make a simple money plan. Then practice compounding, fees, and inflation with fictional amounts.
Ready to explore chart tools? Browse the TradingView guides by task.
Learning company research? Use the ten-step stock-analysis framework.
Before You Invest: Make a Simple Money Plan
Before buying an investment, connect your goals and dates with bills, emergency cash and borrowing questions. Practice with a fictional five-field money note.
Bollinger Bands Explained: How to Use Them in TradingView
Bollinger Bands place a moving average and two adjustable volatility bands around price. They help you see whether a stock is trading near the high or low end of its recent price distribution, and whether that distribution is widening or narrowing. They do not tell you what the business is worth. John Bollinger describes their … Read more
How to Read a TradingView Stock Heatmap
Understand tile size, color, and sector grouping before choosing a company to research Disclosure: I use TradingView Premium and may earn a commission if you purchase a subscription through the affiliate link in this article. A stock heatmap gives you a quick picture of a selected market. It can show whether a price move is … Read more
How to Use TradingView for Fundamental Analysis
Read company financials, compare a few businesses, and take your questions back to the original reports Disclosure: I use TradingView Premium and may earn a commission if you purchase a subscription through the affiliate link in this article. TradingView can help you study a company’s revenue, profit, cash flow, financial position, and valuation ratios. A … Read more
TradingView Financial Data Tools for Beginners
A beginner map of company profiles, financial history, comparison charts, and searchable stock data Disclosure: I use TradingView Premium and may earn a commission if you purchase a subscription through the affiliate link in this article. TradingView brings company information and market data into several tools. For a beginner, the useful starting point is a … Read more
How to Set TradingView Alerts
Choose the right condition, understand bar-close timing, and check what happens after an alert fires Disclosure: I use TradingView Premium and may earn a commission if you purchase a subscription through the affiliate link in this article. A TradingView alert can remind you to review a price move without watching the chart all day. Start … Read more
How to Use TradingView for Beginners
Set up your first chart, organize a watchlist, and save a workspace you can find again Disclosure: I use TradingView Premium and may earn a commission if you purchase a subscription through the affiliate link in this article. You can learn the main TradingView controls with one chart and a few familiar stocks. Start with … Read more
MACD Explained: Lines, Histogram and TradingView Settings
Affiliate disclosure: This guide contains TradingView affiliate links. Stock Metric Lab may earn a commission if you purchase through them. You can explore TradingView here. MACD stands for Moving Average Convergence Divergence. It compares two moving averages to help describe price momentum. The useful beginner question is: how is the relationship between recent prices and … Read more
How to Read a Stock Chart: Candlesticks, Price and Volume
Investing foundations: Lesson 4 of 4 Interested in investing, but unsure what all those lines and colored bars mean? Start with one small task: understand what a chart is showing. Affiliate disclosure: Stock Metric Lab may earn a commission if you purchase a paid TradingView plan through the affiliate link in this article. You can … Read more