Charts & Drawing Tools
The TestMax charting engine provides professional-grade visualization for price analysis. With candlestick charts, 89 drawing tools, volume overlay, and multi-chart layouts, you have everything you need to analyze price action and plan your trades.
Device requirements
Chart replay supports a mouse, trackpad, touch or pen. Touch-only devices need a viewport at least 768 pixels wide, which includes tablet layouts. A device with a mouse or trackpad can also use a narrower window.
On a touch-only phone narrower than 768 pixels, TestMax shows a screen-size notice. Your analytics, billing and settings pages work normally on a phone. The notice has an Email me a link for my computer button that sends a TestMax link to your account email, up to three times a day. Open it on your computer and sign in. It also has a Continue anyway link that the device remembers.
Chart basics
Candlestick charts
TestMax renders standard OHLC (Open, High, Low, Close) candlestick charts. Each candle represents one period at your selected timeframe:
- Green / bullish candle — The close is higher than the open. The body shows the range from open (bottom) to close (top).
- Red / bearish candle — The close is lower than the open. The body shows the range from open (top) to close (bottom).
- Wicks / shadows — The thin lines above and below the body show the high and low of that period.
Chart colours
To change the chart colours, open Settings → Chart and go to Chart Colours:
- Up candle and Down candle — Set the body, border, and wick colour of each one.
- Chart — Set the background and the grid lines. Until you change them, they follow the light or dark theme.
Click Save Colours to keep your choice. Click Reset to default to go back to the green and red candles and the theme background. Your account remembers the colours, so they are the same on all your devices. They apply to every chart pane, the trade preview, and the legend values. Order, position, stop-loss, and take-profit lines keep their own colours.
Price axis
The vertical axis on the right side shows the price scale. It auto-scales to fit the visible candles and includes:
- Last price highlight — The current price is shown with a colored label on the price axis
- Position entry markers — When you have an open position, your entry price is marked on the axis
- Order levels — Pending limit and stop orders are shown as horizontal lines on the chart and marked on the price axis
Time axis
The horizontal axis at the bottom shows timestamps. As you scroll or zoom the chart, the time axis adjusts to show appropriate granularity (individual bars, hours, dates, etc.).
The axis also extends past the latest replay candle into the future, so you can read upcoming bar times, pan into the empty area to the right, and place the crosshair on a future time — useful for planning entries before the candles get there.
Economic event markers
Economic releases appear as labelled vertical lines on the chart (Pro), as ticks on the playback progress bar, and as floating approach and release alerts. To hide all three, switch off Economic Event Markers in Settings → Chart, or use the eye button in the Economic Calendar header. The calendar remains available, and the account remembers the choice across sessions and devices.
Crosshair
Moving your cursor over the chart activates a crosshair that displays the exact price and time at the cursor position. The time label shows the weekday, date and time in your chosen timezone (for example Tue, Sep 2, 14:30:00), so you can tell a Monday open from a Friday close at a glance. This is useful for precise level identification and measuring price distances.
Symbol legend
The top-left corner of the chart shows a legend with the instrument’s name, timeframe, and exchange (for example, Gold Futures · 5m · COMEX), followed by the Open, High, Low, and Close of the current candle and its change from the previous bar (+1.9 (+0.05%)), colored green or red.
As the candle forms during replay, the OHLC values update live. Move the crosshair over any earlier bar and the legend follows it, showing that bar’s OHLC — move off the chart and it snaps back to the live candle. In blind mode the prices are hidden and only the name, timeframe, and exchange remain.
Navigation
Zoom
- Scroll wheel — Zoom in and out on the time axis. Scroll up to zoom in (see fewer bars with more detail), scroll down to zoom out (see more bars).
- Pinch — On trackpads, pinch to zoom.
Pan
- Click and drag — Click and drag the chart horizontally to scroll through time. Drag left to see older data, drag right to see newer data.
Auto-scroll
During active replay, the chart auto-scrolls to keep the latest candle visible. If you manually pan to look at older data, auto-scroll pauses so you are not pulled back. The chart resumes auto-scrolling when new data catches up to your view or when you click the “snap to latest” button.
How far back you can scroll
Resuming a session, jumping forward, or changing the timeframe loads a recent window of up to 10,000 bars on the main chart and 2,000 on each context pane. Scrolling left on the main chart requests older history within the session when the server supports history paging and your data budget allows it. Context panes keep their own bounded history. Drawings anchored outside the currently loaded bars are not displayed.
Drawings are not deleted by this. They are stored against the session and reappear once the window covers them again, but a drawing anchored outside the current window is not drawn. If you want to keep a level that is about to fall out of range, note the price rather than relying on the line being there.
Fullscreen
Expand the entire trading screen to fill your monitor — the chart, trading panels, account bar, and playback controls all stay visible while the browser tabs and address bar disappear. Click the expand icon (⛶) at the top-right of the account bar, beside the panel-settings gear.
The button appears during an active replay session. Click it again — or press Esc — to exit fullscreen.
Screenshots
The camera button in the top account bar beside fullscreen captures the chart as a PNG. Click it and choose:
- Save image — downloads
TestMax_<symbol>_<timeframe>_<date>_<time>.png. - Copy image — puts the PNG on your clipboard, ready to paste into a chat, a journal or an image editor.
In a multi-chart layout the menu also asks Main chart or All charts. All charts stitches every pane into one image in the same grid shape, with each pane labelled by its symbol and timeframe.
The image contains the candles, price and time axes, every drawing, indicator panes, Volume Profile and, when enabled, the economic event rail, plus a small header and a test-max.com watermark. It does not include the OHLC numbers of the legend, indicator legend rows, order and position price tags or the floating toolbars — those are on-screen overlays, not part of the chart. The crosshair and selection handles are left out on purpose.
Volume
Volume bars are displayed below the price chart, showing the trading volume for each candle period. Volume helps confirm price movements:
- High volume on a breakout — Suggests conviction behind the move
- Low volume on a pullback — Suggests the pullback may be temporary
- Volume spikes — Often coincide with significant price reversals or continuations
Volume is rendered as a bar chart overlay at the bottom of the chart area, using a semi-transparent style that does not obstruct the candlestick view.
Volume Profile
Volume bars show when volume traded. Volume Profile shows where — it buckets the volume by price level and draws it as a horizontal histogram across the chart, so you can see the prices the market kept returning to.
Every profile marks three levels:
- Point of control (POC) — The price bucket with the most traded volume, drawn as a dashed orange line. Often acts as a magnet during ranging sessions.
- Value area high / low (VAH / VAL) — The band containing 70% of the session’s volume, drawn as dashed teal lines. Price leaving and re-entering this band is a common setup trigger.
- High and low volume nodes — The peaks and troughs of the histogram itself. Thin areas tend to be crossed quickly; thick ones tend to stall.
Modes
The VP button in the left toolbar cycles through the two chart-wide modes:
| Mode | What it profiles |
|---|---|
| Off | Hidden |
| Session | Every bar loaded in the session, growing as the replay plays forward |
| Visible range | Only the bars currently on screen — the profile rebuilds as you pan and zoom |
Fixed range
To profile one specific move rather than the whole session, use the Fixed Range Volume Profile tool in the Measurements group of the drawing toolbar. Click once at each edge of the range you want to measure, and the profile is pinned between those two points.
Because it is a drawing, a fixed-range profile behaves like one: it is saved with your chart, survives a reload and a timeframe switch, can be undone with Ctrl+Z, and you can place as many as you like. Select it to change its colour and opacity, or drag either anchor to re-measure.
Drawing tools
TestMax includes 89 professional drawing tools for technical analysis. Access them from the toolbar on the left side of the chart area.
Lines and rays
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Trend Line | A straight line drawn between two points. Used to identify trend direction and dynamic support/resistance. |
| Horizontal Line | A price level line extending across the full chart. Essential for marking support, resistance, and key levels. |
| Vertical Line | A time-based line. Useful for marking session opens, news events, or time-based zones. |
| Ray | A line that extends infinitely from its starting point in one direction. |
| Extended Line | A line that extends infinitely in both directions through two anchor points. |
| Info Line | A trend line that displays price change, percentage change, and bar count between the two endpoints. |
Channels
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Parallel Channel | Two parallel lines defining a price channel. Used to identify range-bound price action and channel breakouts. |
| Regression Channel | A statistically derived channel based on linear regression of the selected price data, with standard deviation bands. |
| Disjoint Channel | A channel with independently positioned upper and lower boundaries. |
| Flat Top/Bottom Channel | A channel with one horizontal line and one angled line — useful for ascending/descending triangles. |
Fibonacci tools
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Fibonacci Retracement | Horizontal lines at key Fibonacci levels (23.6%, 38.2%, 50%, 61.8%, 78.6%) between a high and low. The most widely used Fibonacci tool for identifying pullback levels. |
| Fibonacci Extension | Projects price targets beyond the current move using Fibonacci ratios (100%, 127.2%, 161.8%, 200%, 261.8%). |
| Fibonacci Fan | Diagonal lines radiating from a point at Fibonacci angles. Used for identifying dynamic support/resistance. |
| Fibonacci Time Zones | Vertical lines spaced at Fibonacci intervals to project time-based turning points. |
| Fibonacci Arc | Curved arcs at Fibonacci distances from a reference point. |
| Fibonacci Channel | A channel with internal divisions at Fibonacci ratios. |
Gann tools
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Gann Fan | A set of lines radiating from a point at specific Gann angles (1x1, 1x2, 2x1, etc.). |
| Gann Square | A square overlay used for Gann time/price analysis. |
| Gann Box | A rectangular Gann analysis tool with internal grid divisions. |
Shapes and zones
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Rectangle | A rectangular zone. Commonly used to highlight supply/demand zones, order blocks, and areas of interest. |
| Circle | A circular highlight for marking specific areas. |
| Ellipse | An elliptical highlight. |
| Triangle | A three-point shape for pattern identification. |
| Brush | Freehand drawing for marking up the chart with custom annotations. |
| Highlighter | A semi-transparent freehand marker for emphasizing areas without obscuring candles. |
Pattern tools
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| XABCD Pattern | Five-point harmonic pattern tool for drawing Gartley, Butterfly, Bat, and Crab patterns. |
| ABC Pattern | Three-point pattern tool for simple corrective wave identification. |
| Head and Shoulders | Marks the classic reversal pattern with left shoulder, head, right shoulder, and neckline. |
| Elliott Wave | Multi-point tool for labeling Elliott Wave counts (1-2-3-4-5 impulse and A-B-C corrective). |
| Cypher Pattern | Five-point harmonic pattern specific to the Cypher structure. |
Measurement tools
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Price Range | Measures the vertical distance between two price levels in both price and percentage terms. |
| Date Range | Measures the horizontal distance between two time points in bars and time. |
| Price and Date Range | Combined measurement showing price change, percentage change, time elapsed, and number of bars. |
| Anchored VWAP | Volume Weighted Average Price anchored to a specific bar, showing the average price weighted by volume from that point forward. |
Text and annotations
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Text | Place text labels on the chart for notes, level descriptions, or trade plans. |
| Callout | A text box with an arrow pointing to a specific location on the chart. |
| Price Label | A label that sits on the price axis showing a specific price level with custom text. |
| Arrow Marker | Directional arrows (up/down) placed on the chart to mark entries, exits, or expected moves. |
| Flag | A small flag icon placed on the chart to mark notable bars or events. |
Managing drawings
Selecting and editing
Click on any drawing to select it. Selected drawings show anchor handles you can drag to reposition, and a floating toolbar appears above the selection with everything you need — style controls, settings, clone, lock, and delete.
On a touch screen or with a pen, tap to place each anchor and drag to draw a Brush or Highlighter stroke. Drag a selected drawing or its handles to adjust it. Double-tap a text drawing to edit its text; double-tap other drawings to open settings. Double-tap finishes a Path or Polyline. Tapping the first Polyline anchor after placing at least three anchors closes its outline. Adding a second finger during a drawing gesture cancels that gesture; ordinary chart pan and pinch remain available when a drawing tool is not armed.
Inline text
Text tools open a small editor at the chart anchor. Save, Ctrl/⌘+Enter, or leaving the editor commits the text; Escape or Cancel discards the draft. A new drawing is saved only after confirmation, and the whole edit is one undo step. Double-click existing text to edit it in place. Table cells, card titles and summaries can be edited individually; use drawing settings for colours, images, links and table dimensions.
Drawings across charts
You can draw on every chart in a multi-chart layout, not only the primary chart. All drawing tools, the floating toolbar, settings, inline text, copy and paste, and undo work the same way on each chart.
- Charts of the session’s instrument share the primary chart’s drawings. A drawing you place or edit on one of these charts appears on all of them at once. Anchor times are mapped to each chart’s timeframe, and each chart uses its own revealed bars for drawing calculations.
- Charts of another instrument show that instrument’s own drawings. They are saved for that instrument, so you see them on any chart of that instrument, also when you replay it as the primary chart. The chart accepts drawings after its saved drawings have loaded.
- Undo, Redo and Remove all in the toolbar act on the chart you clicked last, the same as the keyboard shortcuts. Remove all on a chart of another instrument keeps the session instrument’s drawings.
- Paste puts the copy 2 bars after the original, on the chart you clicked last.
- The right-click chart menu is on the primary chart only. Lock, hide and magnet settings apply to all charts.
Removing drawings
The primary chart’s right-click menu offers Remove drawings on this bar for visible, unlocked drawings with an anchor on that bar. A line merely crossing the bar is not included. Remove drawings clears all drawings for the symbol, including hidden and locked drawings. Both actions can be undone.
Multi-select
Hold Ctrl (⌘ on Mac) and click drawings to add or remove them from the selection. With multiple drawings selected:
- Drag any selected drawing to move the whole group together (locked drawings stay put)
- Edit from the floating toolbar to apply a color, thickness, or line style change to every selected drawing at once
- Press Delete to remove the entire selection in one undoable step
Floating toolbar
When you select a drawing, a compact toolbar appears above it with the most-used controls for that tool type:
- Color — Color palette with an opacity slider and custom hex input
- Thickness — Line width from 1 to 4 pixels
- Line style — Solid, dashed, or dotted
- Text color / size — Shown for text-capable tools
- Settings — Opens the full settings dialog
- Clone, Lock, and Delete
Drag the grip on the left edge to move the toolbar anywhere on the chart; it remembers its pinned position.
Settings dialog
Open the settings dialog from the gear icon on the floating toolbar. Changes preview live on the chart as you adjust them — OK commits everything as a single undo step, Cancel (or Esc) restores the drawing to how it looked before.
Rectangles support left/right extensions, an independently styled middle line, and horizontal/vertical text alignment. Hold Shift while placing a Rectangle, Circle or Ellipse to keep equal screen dimensions. Paths have an end arrow by default; enable a start arrow, remove arrows, or close the path and configure its fill in settings.
Visual properties for the selected tool: line color, thickness, and style; fill color and opacity for shapes; extend left/right for lines; arrowheads at either end; trend line stats (price range, bar count, angle); and text color and size. Fibonacci tools include a full level editor — enable or disable individual levels, change their values and colors, toggle the background fill, reverse the direction, and position the labels. Long/short position tools accept an account size and risk percentage to compute quantity and projected P&L.
The exact price and bar index of each anchor point. Type a value to place an anchor precisely instead of dragging it.
Show the drawing on all timeframes (the default) or only on the timeframes you check. A trend line drawn for hourly structure can be hidden on your 1-minute execution chart. The list covers the presets plus any custom timeframe the drawing is already restricted to and the one you are currently on, so a custom-timeframe restriction is never dropped when you reopen the dialog.
Magnet mode
The magnet button in the toolbar’s utility cluster snaps drawing points to exact OHLC values of the nearest bar, so your levels land precisely on highs, lows, opens, and closes:
| Mode | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Off | Points land exactly where you click. |
| Weak Magnet | Snaps to the nearest OHLC value only when the cursor is close to it (within about 30 pixels). |
| Strong Magnet | Always snaps to the nearest OHLC value of the bar under the cursor. |
Click the magnet button to toggle between off and your last-used strength; use the chevron beside it to choose Weak or Strong. Holding Ctrl (⌘ on Mac) temporarily inverts the magnet — it enables strong snapping while the magnet is off, and disables snapping while it is on.
Magnet applies when placing points and when dragging anchor handles. Dragging a drawing’s body moves it freely.
Drawing keyboard shortcuts
These shortcuts work whenever the trading dashboard has focus. On Mac, use ⌘ in place of Ctrl and ⌥ Option in place of Alt.
Customize tool bindings in Settings → Chart → Drawing Shortcuts. Record Alt/Option plus a letter or number, optionally with Shift. Conflicting bindings are rejected; Clear removes a binding and Reset shortcuts restores the defaults. Preferences are saved for your account on this browser, and the tool menus and Help overlay show the current bindings. The table below lists defaults.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Alt+T | Arm the Trend Line tool (press again to disarm) |
| Alt+H | Arm the Horizontal Line tool |
| Alt+V | Arm the Vertical Line tool |
| Alt+C | Arm the Cross Line tool |
| Alt+F | Arm the Fibonacci Retracement tool |
| Esc | Cancel in-progress placement → deselect → disarm the active tool (in that priority) |
| Delete / Backspace | Delete the selected drawings |
| Ctrl+Z | Undo |
| Ctrl+Shift+Z / Ctrl+Y | Redo |
| Ctrl+C | Copy the selected drawings |
| Ctrl+V | Paste copied drawings, slightly offset; the pasted copies become the new selection |
| ← ↑ → ↓ | Nudge the selection one bar horizontally or one pixel of price vertically |
| Shift + arrows | Nudge ×10 |
Mouse modifiers
| Modifier | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl/⌘ + click | Add or remove a drawing from the multi-selection |
| Ctrl/⌘ + drag | Clone the drawing and drag the copy; the original stays put |
| Shift while dragging a body | Lock movement to one axis (horizontal or vertical) |
| Shift while dragging a line endpoint | Snap the line’s angle to 45° increments |
| Shift while placing a point | Snap the new point to a 45° angle from the previous point |
| Ctrl/⌘ while placing or resizing | Temporarily invert magnet mode |
Favorites bar
Hover over any tool in a toolbar flyout and click the star to mark it as a favorite. Favorited tools appear in a floating favorites bar at the top of the chart for one-click access — no need to open the flyout menus. Drag the bar’s grip to reposition it; it remembers where you put it, and it hides automatically when you have no favorites.
Stay in drawing mode
By default, a tool disarms after you complete one drawing. Toggle Stay in Drawing Mode (the pencil-lock button in the utility cluster) to keep the tool armed so you can place several drawings in a row — useful when marking many levels at once. Press Esc to disarm at any time.
Undo and redo
The Undo and Redo buttons sit in the utility cluster next to Remove All. They step through every drawing change — placing, moving, restyling, deleting, reordering — and grey out when there is nothing left to undo or redo. Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y (⌘Z / ⌘⇧Z on Mac) do the same thing. Undoing a delete puts the drawing back on the layer it came from, and Remove All is one undo step, so a slip of the trash button is never final.
Persistence
Drawings save automatically to your account, per symbol. Changes are written moments after you make them — there is no save button — and flushed immediately if you switch symbols or close the tab. When you return to a chart, on any device, your drawings are restored exactly where you left them.
Drawings are scoped to the symbol, not the timeframe: a level drawn on the 5-minute NQ chart appears in the same place on the 1-minute or hourly chart, unless you restrict it from the settings dialog’s Visibility tab.
Multi-chart layouts
Add up to three extra charts alongside your primary chart to keep the bigger picture in view while you trade. An extra chart can be a higher-timeframe context chart of the same instrument — for example, trade on the 5m while watching the 15m and 1h — or a chart of a different instrument at any timeframe, such as an NQ chart running beside your ES session.
Adding and editing charts
You can set up charts when configuring a session, or change them at any point during a live session:
- At session setup — pick your primary timeframe, then tick up to three higher timeframes under Context Charts. Only timeframes above your primary are offered, and changing the primary timeframe clears the selection.
A context chart must also be a whole multiple of your primary timeframe, so that every primary bar closes inside exactly one context bar: 15m over 5m works, 45m over 30m does not. Timeframes that are coarser but do not divide evenly are refused with a message saying so.
- During a session — open the Edit charts button near the bottom of the drawing toolbar. From there you can remove any chart, add a context chart of your session’s instrument, or add another instrument entirely: choose the instrument, then pick a timeframe. Other-instrument charts may use any timeframe their data supports, including ones finer than your primary — a finer chart reveals its bars in a burst each time a primary bar completes. Applying a change briefly pauses the replay; press play to continue.
When the chart count changes, the chart area automatically switches to a grid sized to the number of charts.
The first time the multi-chart grid opens, a short three-step walkthrough points out the primary chart, the synced context charts, and the layout switcher. Dismiss it with Skip or Done — it won’t appear again.
Available layouts
Rearrange the grid anytime with the layout switcher at the bottom of the drawing toolbar. Layouts that match your chart count are offered:
| Layout | Charts | Arrangement |
|---|---|---|
| Side by side | 2 | Primary left, context right |
| Stacked | 2 | Primary top, context bottom |
| Main + 2 | 3 | Large primary, two context charts stacked to the right |
| 3 columns | 3 | Equal vertical thirds |
| 3 rows | 3 | Equal horizontal thirds |
| Wide top + 2 | 3 | Full-width chart above two smaller charts |
| 2 + wide bottom | 3 | Two smaller charts above a full-width chart |
| 2 × 2 grid | 4 | Four equal panes |
Your layout is remembered for the session — refreshing the page or visiting Analytics and returning restores it.
How extra charts behave
- Context charts show the session’s instrument at a higher timeframe; other-instrument charts show their own instrument at the timeframe you picked and format prices with that instrument’s tick size.
- Every chart advances in sync with the replay; one set of playback controls drives them all, and no chart ever shows data from ahead of the replay clock.
- The visible time range and crosshair mirror the primary chart, so scrolling or hovering on the primary keeps every chart aligned.
- Trading and the right-click menu live on the primary chart only. Orders always go to the session’s instrument. You can draw on every chart; see Drawings across charts.
- Changing the primary timeframe removes context charts that no longer sit above it as a whole multiple; other-instrument charts always stay.
Chart analysis tips
Mark key levels before pressing play
Before starting a replay session, pause the chart and draw horizontal lines at major support and resistance levels you can identify from the visible history. This forces you to do your analysis first, then watch how price reacts to your levels.
Use rectangles for supply and demand zones
Supply and demand zones are areas, not exact prices. Use the rectangle tool to mark zones where you expect buying or selling pressure. Color-code them — for example, green rectangles for demand zones and red for supply zones.
Anchor VWAP to session open
The Anchored VWAP tool is especially useful when anchored to the session open (9:30 AM ET for US futures). Institutional traders use VWAP as a benchmark, so price often respects this level throughout the day.
Keep drawings organized
Over time, charts can get cluttered with drawings. Periodically clean up old drawings that are no longer relevant. Keep only the levels and annotations that inform your current trading decisions.