Free Chart Replay: Practice Past Charts, No Spoilers
How chart replay (bar replay) works, what to look for in a free chart replay website, and a routine for practicing entries, exits and risk on past sessions.
Chart replay plays a past trading session back one candle at a time. You see the chart up to a point, decide whether to buy, sell or wait, then reveal the next candle and live with the decision. It is the closest thing to live trading that costs nothing, and you can do a week of sessions in an evening.
Why practice on replay
- Repetitions. A live market gives you one New York open a day. Replay gives you as many as you have time for.
- No money at risk. You can make the mistakes you need to make while they are free.
- Your own pace. Step candle by candle when it matters, skip ahead when nothing happens.
- Honest feedback. Every trade has a result, and a journal shows the pattern behind the results.
The spoiler problem
The biggest weakness of most replay practice is that you know the day. If you pick "the day of the big rate decision" from a calendar, part of you already knows what happens, and your entries get suspiciously good. Practice like that teaches hindsight, not trading.
The fix is a hidden date at a random start time: a session you can't place, starting at a minute you didn't choose. Then the only thing you can trade is what is on the chart.
What to look for in a free chart replay tool
| Feature | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Candle by candle stepping, and play at your own speed | The core of replay |
| Market, limit and stop orders with stop loss and take profit | Real decisions include exits, not only entries |
| Profit and loss in dollars per contract or lot | Teaches sizing, not only direction |
| Hidden date and random start | Removes hindsight |
| Real market data for the sessions | Practice on how markets actually moved |
| Timeframes from seconds to daily | See the context and the detail |
| A journal and stats | Turns practice into feedback |
| Prop firm rules | If you are preparing for an evaluation |
A 30 minute replay routine
- Pick one window. For index futures, the New York open (9:30 New York time) is the busiest half hour of the day. For forex, the London open. See London session hours.
- Set your risk before the first candle. One fixed dollar risk per trade, a maximum number of trades.
- Trade only your setups. Write them down first. Everything else is a pass.
- Step candle by candle near decisions, play faster in between.
- Journal every trade in one line: setup, result in R, rule followed or broken.
- Review once a week. Which setups made money, which habits cost it. The risk reward and win rate guide explains what to measure.
Free chart replay in ChartTrainer
ChartTrainer is a chart replay simulator that runs in any browser, on desktop and phone. You replay real market days for futures and stocks (forex and crypto use generated sessions for now) candle by candle with the date hidden, trade with market, limit and stop orders, drag stops and targets on the chart, and every trade lands in a journal. The free plan includes 45 minutes of replay and 30 trades a day and a prop firm style evaluation account. Start from the futures simulator or the forex simulator.
Videos
- Bar Replay Free: No date. No spoilers. Call this NVDA open. (YouTube)
- Pause and decide: GBP/USD at the London open (YouTube)
Questions
- What is chart replay?
- Chart replay, also called bar replay or market replay, plays a past trading session back one candle at a time, so you can practice decisions as if the session were live, without seeing what comes next.
- Is there a free chart replay website?
- Yes. ChartTrainer runs in the browser and its free plan includes 45 minutes of replay and 30 trades a day on futures, forex, crypto and stock sessions, with orders, stops, targets and a journal.
- Why should the date be hidden in chart replay?
- If you know the date, you may remember or look up how the day ended, and your practice turns into hindsight. A hidden date at a random start time keeps every decision honest.
- Is chart replay the same as backtesting?
- Chart replay is one way to backtest by hand: you step through the past and take trades by your rules. Automated backtesting runs a coded strategy over the history in seconds. Both have a place.