ChartingLens combines charting, AI research, and smart alerts into one platform — but with so much packed in, new users often don't know where to start. This guide is the shortest path from "just signed up" to running a real trading workflow. We'll walk through the same three-step loop we use ourselves: find a trade, research it with AI, then set an alert so you never miss the entry.
The flow is the same whether you're swing trading, day trading, or investing for the long term. By the end of this guide you'll know what every feature does and exactly when to use it.
The 3-Step Workflow at a Glance
Find a Trade
Use AI Buy Signals, the Stock Screener, or Hedge Fund Holdings to surface ideas worth looking at
Research It
Use the AI Chat, CL Score, and stock info to backtest, check news, and validate the setup
Set Your Alert
Drop a price, indicator, or trendline alert so the platform watches the trade for you 24/7
Three steps. That's the whole loop. Let's break each one down.
Step 1: Finding a Trade
Before you can trade anything, you need to know what to trade. ChartingLens gives you three different ways to surface opportunities, each suited to a different style.
AI Buy Signals
Let the Algorithm Do the Work
AI Buy Signals is a curated list of stocks that our proprietary algorithm has flagged. Each stock on the list is either actively in a trade (meaning the algorithm has identified a current setup and is tracking it) or being watched for a potential entry soon.
The system scans the market using the CL Score, historical pattern matching, and technical momentum to rank opportunities by confidence. You get a list sorted by the stocks most likely to move, along with the algorithm's win rate and average gain for each signal based on historical data.
Stock Screener
Find Stocks That Match Your Exact Setup
If you have a specific set of criteria you look for in a trade, the Stock Screener lets you build your own filter. This is for traders who already know what they want and just need the platform to surface stocks that match.
You can filter using two types of criteria:
- Fundamental filters — Market cap, P/E ratio, dividend yield, price range, and volume thresholds
- Technical filters — MACD crossovers, Stochastic signals, ADX trend strength, RSI levels, and more
What makes this screener different is the dual-timeframe mode. You can set technical criteria on two different timeframes simultaneously. So if you want a stock where the MACD is bullish on both the daily and the weekly chart, you can filter for exactly that. This is useful for confirming that a setup aligns across timeframes before committing to a trade.
Hedge Fund Holdings
See What Legendary Investors Are Buying
Every quarter, institutional investors with over $100M in assets are required to file a 13F form with the SEC disclosing their holdings. ChartingLens tracks over 30 of these investors, including Warren Buffett, Michael Burry, Ray Dalio, Stanley Druckenmiller, and more, and lets you browse their portfolios in real time.
You can see what each investor currently holds, what they recently added or sold, and how their positions are allocated across sectors.
But the real power is in the overlap detection. ChartingLens cross-references all tracked investors and highlights stocks that multiple hedge fund managers are buying simultaneously. When several of the world's best investors are independently loading up on the same stock, it gives you a strong signal about where institutional capital is flowing.
Step 2: Researching Your Trade With AI
You've found a stock that looks interesting. Now you need to decide whether to actually trade it. This is where the AI Chat becomes your most important tool.
Open the AI Chat from the right sidebar. It is a chat box that understands your chart — when you ask a question, it can read what's on screen, run backtests, draw lines, and pull live news. You talk to it in plain English, no setup or scripting required. There are two models: the free model handles indicators, technical questions, and backtests, while the premium model Premium adds live web search for real-time news, earnings, and market data.
Backtesting a Strategy
Test Your Strategy Before You Risk Real Money
One of the most powerful features of the AI Chat is natural language backtesting. Instead of writing code or configuring complex settings, you just describe your strategy in plain English.
For example, you could type: "Backtest a strategy that buys when RSI crosses above 30 and MACD crosses bullish, and sells when RSI hits 70."
The AI will apply the strategy to the stock's historical data, draw all the relevant indicators on your chart, and return stats including win rate, average gain, and total trades. You can see exactly where the strategy would have entered and exited.
Checking the News
Ask the AI Chat about recent news for any stock. This is useful when a stock has made a big move and you want to understand why before deciding whether the move is likely to continue or reverse. Simply ask something like "What's the latest news on TSLA?" and the AI will give you a summary of recent events and catalysts.
Support and Resistance Levels
Get Key Levels Drawn Directly on Your Chart
Ask the AI for support and resistance levels on any stock and it will identify the key price levels and draw them directly on your chart. You can even ask for levels on specific dates or timeframes.
This helps you identify where to enter a trade, where to set your stop loss, and where to take profits. Instead of eyeballing levels, you get AI-calculated zones based on price action and volume data.
Screenshot AI Analysis
Already have drawings on your chart? Trendlines, support/resistance zones, Fibonacci retracements? Use the Screenshot AI feature to capture your chart and ask the AI to analyze it. Ask things like:
- "Do my drawings look correct?"
- "Am I missing any key levels?"
- "Does this look like a bullish or bearish setup?"
- "What patterns do you see?"
The AI analyzes the visual chart, including your drawings, and gives you feedback. It is like having a second set of eyes on every trade.
Smart Money Concepts
Ask the AI to "detect Smart Money Concepts" on any chart and it will plot Fair Value Gaps, order blocks, and supply/demand zones directly onto your candles. If SMC isn't your style, you can ask for any other technical concept the same way — the AI handles all the drawing for you.
Saving a Strategy as a Live Alert
Ran a backtest you really like? After the results come back, you can activate the same strategy as a live alert in one click. The AI keeps watching the market and sends you a notification (email if you're premium Premium) the moment your next buy or sell signal fires — no need to re-run the backtest yourself.
Free accounts get daily access — no credit card required.
CL Score
Get a Bull/Bear Score in One Glance
The CL Score is a proprietary rating from 0 to 100 that summarizes the technical health of any stock. It factors in trend strength, momentum, volume confirmation, and support/resistance levels.
- High score (70+) — The technicals are bullish. Momentum, trend, and volume align to the upside.
- Mid score (40-70) — Mixed signals. Worth watching but not a strong conviction trade.
- Low score (below 40) — The technicals are bearish. Consider avoiding long entries or looking for short setups.
The CL Score is visible in the stock info panel on the sidebar. Use it as a quick sanity check after your other research: if everything else looks good but the CL Score is low, it might be worth waiting for conditions to improve.
You can also ask the AI Chat general questions about market sentiment, sector performance, or anything else you need to build conviction before entering a trade.
Step 3: Never Missing an Opportunity
You have found a trade and done your research. Maybe the stock isn't quite at your entry level yet, or you are waiting for a specific technical signal to trigger. This is where alerts come in, so you don't have to sit and watch the chart all day.
ChartingLens alerts run in the background every five minutes even when your browser is closed, so you can walk away and let the platform watch the trade for you.
Price Alerts
The simplest alert type. Set a target price level and get notified when the stock crosses it. Right-click anywhere on the chart to quickly set a price alert at that exact level, or use the alerts panel in the sidebar. Great for entries, exits, or just keeping an eye on a stock you are interested in.
Indicator Alerts
Trigger on Technical Signals, Not Just Price
If your trading strategy is based on technical indicators, you can set alerts that trigger when specific conditions are met. Supported indicators include:
- MACD — Alert on bullish or bearish crossovers
- Stochastic — Alert on crossovers or when it enters overbought/oversold zones
- RSI — Alert when RSI crosses above or below a specific value
- ADX — Alert on bullish or bearish trend signals
You can combine multiple conditions into a single alert and even set conditions across different timeframes. All conditions must be true at the same time for the alert to trigger, so you get precise, high-conviction signals.
Trendline Alerts Premium
Get Notified When Price Breaks Your Trendline
Draw a trendline on your chart, then right-click it to set an alert. You have two trigger modes:
- Price Cross — Triggers immediately when the live price crosses the trendline
- Candle Close — Triggers only when a completed candle closes above or below the trendline on a specific timeframe
The candle close mode is especially useful for avoiding false breakouts. A quick wick through a trendline does not trigger the alert. Only a confirmed close on your chosen timeframe (1-hour, daily, weekly, etc.) will fire the notification.
All alerts show up as in-app notifications with sound, and premium users also receive email notifications Premium so you can stay informed even when you are away from your computer.
Bonus: Practice Mode & Charting Toolkit
The three-step workflow above is the core loop. Everything below supports it — and the first one (Bar Replay) might be the most underrated feature on the platform.
Bar Replay & Paper Trading Premium
Trade Past Markets Like It's Live
Bar Replay rewinds any chart to a past date and steps forward candle by candle. You can place real long or short orders with stop losses and take profits, and your P&L is tracked just like a live trade — except no money is on the line.
Use the random date button to jump to a moment in history you don't recognize. That's the only honest way to test your chart-reading skills, since you can't peek at what happens next.
"I've used a lot of platforms over the years and features like the AI Chat auto-drawing support and resistance and the plain-English backtester are things I've never seen anywhere else. They genuinely feel like magic."
Charting Toolkit
Everything you need to actually read a chart is built in. Most of these are free.
- 10+ chart types — Candlestick, Heikin Ashi, line, area, baseline, and more
- Timeframes from 1-minute to monthly — with crypto, futures, and pre/post-market data
- 15+ technical indicators — RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, Ichimoku, VWAP, Supertrend, and more, with customizable colors and parameters
- Drawing tools — Trendlines, Fibonacci retracement, parallel channels, horizontal/vertical lines, text, callouts, and long/short position markers with built-in target and stop-loss
- Auto chart pattern detection Premium — 13+ patterns (head and shoulders, triangles, wedges, channels, double tops/bottoms) drawn automatically on the chart
- Multi-chart layout Premium — Up to 3 charts in 8 layout arrangements, plus multi-window support for multi-monitor setups
- Watchlists — Multiple named lists with live prices, pre/post-market quotes, earnings dates, analyst targets, and the CL Score
- Insider trading tab — Real-time SEC Form 4 filings on any stock, with cluster detection when 3+ insiders buy in the same window
Drawings, alerts, watchlists, and chart layouts are all saved to the cloud, so everything stays in sync across sessions and devices.
Free vs Premium at a Glance
You can do real work on ChartingLens without paying. Premium ($9.99/month) removes limits and unlocks the heavier features.
Everything to Get Started
Live charts, all indicators, drawing tools, watchlists, price alerts, the insider trading tab, the CL Score, and limited daily access to the AI Chat, AI Buy Signals, and Stock Screener. Earn extra free credits with the daily login streak.
Create Free Account →Unlocks the Power Tools — $9.99/mo
Unlimited AI Chat + live web search, unlimited backtests with "Find Best Timeframe", auto chart pattern detection, multi-chart layouts, Bar Replay, trendline alerts, email notifications, full Hedge Fund Holdings, and unlimited screener results.
See Premium Plan →Cancel anytime. No long-term contracts.
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