Bar Replay: Practise Historical Chart Reading

What it does

Bar Replay turns a historical chart into a sequence of decisions rather than a finished picture. Select a candle, keep later candles hidden, and reveal the next completed bar when you are ready. It is useful for practising how you describe price structure and for checking what information was visible before a move.

There are two distinct workflows. Native replay is chart playback: it does not execute a strategy, record fills or calculate a trading account. Paper replay begins when you choose Trade and start a virtual account. That handoff uses a separate simulation player and accounting engine.

How it works

Choose Replay in the chart header, confirm the notice and select a historical candle. The selected candle is initially hidden. Next reveals a completed candle; Play advances automatically; Pause stops the sequence.

Native replay tracks the end of the last revealed candle. Changing timeframe pauses playback and keeps that historical clock. A larger candle appears only once its entire period has finished by that clock. This avoids revealing a full hourly candle while the replay is still partway through that hour.

Daily, weekly and monthly candles use conservative UTC calendar boundaries, not an assumed NSE afternoon close. A daily bar may therefore remain hidden when you expect the trading session to have ended.

Key capabilities

• Speed control: select a target from 0.1 to 200 bars per second.
• Paused stepping: Next reveals one candle; Back revisits the preceding candle.
• Timeframe changes: inspect another available interval without deliberately moving the native replay clock forward.
• Chart studies: applied Pine chart indicators receive the replay cutoff. A study remains an analytical display, not an executed trade.
• Chart annotations: use the chart's drawing workflow to mark observations. Ending native replay does not delete your drawings or indicators.
• Virtual practice: Trade opens starting-balance and cost settings before switching to paper replay.

Indicator calculations remain subject to their own supported runtime and script behaviour. Replay is not proof of indicator correctness, non-repainting behaviour or strategy performance.

How to use

1. Open Charts and select the symbol, feed and timeframe you want to study.
2. Check that the historical date actually loads.
3. Choose Replay, confirm and pick a starting candle.
4. Pause before recording an observation or drawing a level.
5. Use Next for individual decisions or Play for a sequence.
6. If you want recorded simulated fills, choose Trade and configure a paper account.
7. Choose End to leave replay and restore recent chart history.

With the chart focused, Shift + Space plays or pauses native replay. Shift + Right advances while paused, Shift + Left goes back, and Shift + Up or Down changes speed. Escape cancels selection or closes help; it does not end replay. The information button explains the active player's controls.

Follow the bar replay practice guide for a repeatable learning session.

Indian-market history and limitations

For Nifty practice, first verify the symbol, date and interval against the feed you selected. History is not interchangeable across timeframes. The documented May 2024 Nifty check, for example, has 15- and 60-minute cloud history but no five-minute cloud history. That is a dated availability example, not a current coverage promise.

Replay does not manufacture missing candles or substitute a different resolution to fill a gap. An unavailable timeframe should restore the previous working interval. Loading failures and confirmed exhaustion are different states; use Retry when an error is shown.

This is closed-candle replay, not an intrabar reconstruction of every price change. Paper fills add assumptions about costs and execution; they are not broker fills or evidence of future returns. TradingLead has a five-day whole-platform trial followed by subscription access. See pricing rather than assuming unlimited free replay.

FAQ

Can I practise without creating a trading account?

You can use native chart playback without creating a paper account. A signed-in paper session is needed when you want virtual balances, orders and a saved trade ledger.

Will End delete my paper account?

No. Ending replay restores the live chart view while preserving the locally saved paper account. It does not free an occupied simulation slot.

Where do I review simulated trades?

Open the paper ledger or backtest trade list and use View on chart. See trade review for markers, labels and connecting lines.