
How to Read a Stock Chart. 1. Observe the Price and Time Axes. Every stock chart has two axes - the price axis and the time axis. The horizontal (or bottom) axis shows the time ... 2. Look for the Trend Line. 3. Identify Trading Volume. 4. Identify Lines of Support and Resistance.
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How to read a stock chart?
How to read a stock chart 1. Identify the trend line. This is that blue line you see every time you hear about a stock—it’s either going up or... 2. Look for lines of support and resistance. The next thing you’ll want to look at are the lines of resistance and... 3. Know when dividends and stock ...
How do you find the day high and low of stocks?
The P/E ratio is found by dividing the current stock price by the earnings per share for the past year (four quarters). The day high and low simply show the highest and lowest prices at which the stock traded throughout the day, from market open to market close.
How can I find out more about a stock?
More advanced stock charts will show additional data, and by understanding the basics you can pull out a lot of information about a stock’s historic, current, and expected performance. One of the best websites to look at basic stock information is Google Finance.
How do you read trading volume on a stock chart?
The volume is generally indicated on the bottom of the stock chart in green and red bars (or sometimes blue or purple bars). The key thing to look out for when examining trading volume is spikes in trading volume, which can indicate the strength of a trend - whether it is high trading volume down or up.
What is stochastic oscillator?
Is the stochastic oscillator range bound?
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How do you read a stock chart for beginners?
Key concepts when learning how to read a stock chartIdentify the trendline. This is that blue line you see every time you hear about a stock — it's either going up or down right? ... Look for lines of support and resistance. ... Know when dividends and stock splits occur. ... Understand historic trading volumes.
How do you read stock chart numbers?
0:284:37How to Read a Stock Chart - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipTime is represented along the horizontal. Axis. This timeframe can be adjusted to show any periodMoreTime is represented along the horizontal. Axis. This timeframe can be adjusted to show any period you want from minutes to days to years and price is represented along the vertical axis.
What do the numbers mean on a stock graph?
The numbers on the stock exchange for a given company's stock reflect the price of a single share of stock in that company. Typically, the last price that a stock traded at is the number reported to the general public.
How do you read a stock grid?
0:083:01How to Read Stock Tables For Dummies - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipEvery. Company is listed by name which is usually abbreviated. And has a symbol that's been assignedMoreEvery. Company is listed by name which is usually abbreviated. And has a symbol that's been assigned. Remember stock symbols are the language of investing.
How do you know when to buy a stock?
The period after any correction or crash has historically been a great time for investors to buy at bargain prices. If stock prices are oversold, investors can decide whether they are "on sale" and likely to rise in the future. Coming to a single stock-price target is not important.
How do you read graphs and charts?
The line along the bottom is called the horizontal or x-axis, and the line up the side is called the vertical or y-axis.The x-axis may contain categories or numbers. You read it from the bottom left of the graph.The y-axis usually contains numbers, again starting from the bottom left of the graph.
How do you understand shares?
A share is simply a divided up unit of the value of a company. For example, if a company is worth £100 million, and there are 50 million shares, then each share is worth £2 (usually listed as 200p).
How do you read a stock chart like a pro?
Look at the very top of a stock chart on the far left. You'll see the ticker symbol for the chart, followed by the date and the high, low and closing prices for that day. The volume of shares traded is also listed. On the next line down is the moving average, which looks something like this: MA (45) 19.35.
Which chart is best for trading?
For most stock day traders, a tick chart will work best for actually placing trades. The tick chart shows the most detailed information and provides more potential trade signals when the market is active (relative to a one-minute or longer time frame chart). It also highlights when there is little activity.
Which graph is best for stock market?
The candlestick chart has become standard on almost all platforms and is the most popular style of chart used by traders. The chart utilizes the opening, high, low and closing price data per specified time interval to generate a candlestick, which is plotted on a price chart.
Where can I find stock charts?
Stock charts are freely available on websites such as Google Finance and Yahoo Finance , and stock brokerages always make stock charts available for their clients. In short, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding stock charts to examine.
What does it mean when a stock crosses above the 200 day moving average?
When the 50-day moving average crosses from below to above the 200-day moving average, this event is referred to by technical analysts as a “golden cross”. A golden cross is basically an indication that the stock is “gold”, set for substantially higher prices.
Why do investors use technical indicators?
In analyzing stock charts for stock market investing, investors use a variety of technical indicators to help them more precisely probable price movement, to identify trends, and to anticipate market reversals from bullish trends to bearish trends and vice-versa.
What are technical indicators?
There is virtually an endless list of technical indicators for traders to choose from in analyzing a chart. Experiment with various indicators to discover the ones that work best for your particular style of trading, and as applied to the specific stocks that you trade. You’ll likely find that some indicators work very well for you in forecasting price movement for some stocks but not for others.
What does YY mean in financial analysis?
YoY (Year over Year) YoY stands for Year over Year and is a type of financial analysis used for comparing time series data.
What is technical analysis?
Technical Analysis - A Beginner's Guide Technical analysis is a form of investment valuation that analyses past prices to predict future price action.
What is a death cross in stocks?
You can probably figure out on your own that a “death cross” isn’t considered to bode well for a stock’s future price movement.
How to read stock charts?
What Does Stock Charts Tell Us? 1 Planning Tool — When you know how to read a stock chart, you'll see things you otherwise wouldn't know about how other buyers and sellers have been trading that stock recently. This can be especially useful if you are planning to buy or sell that stock in the near future. 2 Decide whether it's a good time to get in or not — You can also chart the overall market using a market index instead of an individual stock. This can help you decide whether now is a good time to invest (or invest more) in a market index ETF or mutual fund. And it can give you something to talk about at parties. 3 Anticipate The impact of the Individual Investor — As an individual investor, it is very important to remember that institutional buyers — including mutual funds, pension funds, and other big pools of money — drive the behavior of stock prices throughout the day. A single big player can buy and sell a stock in such a large quantity that the pressure of its order alone, whether to buy or sell, can move the price. An individual investor who wants to buy or sell the same stock that day has to go along for the ride. 4 Avoid buying at a bad time — You can use stock charts to try to avoid buying or selling at the worst time. (No guarantees, though — this isn't an exact science!)
What do stock charts tell you?
Stock charts may not tell you which stocks to buy, but they can help you decide whether it's a good time to buy or sell those stocks . Planning Tool — When you know how to read a stock chart, you'll see things you otherwise wouldn't know about how other buyers and sellers have been trading that stock recently.
How many dashes are there in a bar?
Horizontal Dashes (“twigs”) Each bar has two little “twigs” (horizontal dashes) poking out, one to the left and one to the right. Some are near the top of the bar, some near the bottom, many are in between — there's no discernable pattern.
Why use daily and weekly charts?
Using daily and weekly charts together helps you distinguish between normal price changes and a true shift in trend. Intra-day (shortest interval) charts are helpful when it comes to deciding the best time to buy or to sell.
What is the line on a candlestick called?
The lines sticking out above and below the body are called “shadows” (or sometimes “wicks” and “tails”). These show the range of the highest and lowest prices during that interval.
Can a single player buy and sell a stock?
A single big player can buy and sell a stock in such a large quantity that the pressure of its order alone, whether to buy or sell, can move the price. An individual investor who wants to buy or sell the same stock that day has to go along for the ride. Avoid buying at a bad time — You can use stock charts to try to avoid buying or selling at ...
What does it mean when a stochastic number is high?
When your Stochastic is at a high value, it means that price closed near the top of the range over a certain time period or number of price candles. The graphic shows that the low was at $60, the high at $100 (range of $40) and price closed almost at the very top at $95.
What does a stochastic over 80 mean?
It shows momentum. Generally, traders would say that a Stochastic over 80 means that the price is overbought and when the Stochastic is below 20, the price is considered oversold.
What does a low stochastic mean?
Conversely, a low Stochastic value indicates that the momentum to the downside is strong. In the graphic we can see that price only closed $5 above the low of the range at $50.
Can you use stochastic indicator by itself?
As with any other trading concept or tool, you should not use the Stochastic indicator by itself. To receive meaningful signals and improve the quality of your trades, you can combine the Stochastic indicator with those 3 tools:
Who invented the stochastic indicator?
This is a quote from George Lane, the inventor of the STOCHASTIC indicator: “Stochastics measures the momentum of price. If you visualize a rocket going up in the air – before it can turn down, it must slow down. Momentum always changes direction before price.”. – George Lane, the developer of the Stochastic indicator.
Is the stochastic indicator misinterpreted?
Additionally, there is a lot of wrong knowledge being shared among traders and even widely used tools such as the Stochastic indicator is often misinterpreted by the majority of traders. Do not blindly believe what other people tell you, do your own research and build your trading knowledge.
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What is stock chart?
In its most basic form, a stock chart is exactly what I said above – a chart with historic prices of a particular stock.
What does dividend mean on stock chart?
At the bottom of the chart, you’ll see if and when the company issued a dividend, as well as if there was ever a stock split: A dividend is when the company (the board of directors) decides to give a portion of its earnings back to its shareholders. If you own the stock, you get a small chunk of the profit.
What is public stock trading?
Public. Public makes stock trading a social event – literally. When you use Public, you’ll have access to a community of investors – both long-time, experienced investors and beginner investors. This allows you to chat with others and get a sense of which investing strategy may work best for you.
What happens when a stock splits?
Many times when a stock split happens, more people invest (since the share price is often lower) which increases demand and, in many cases, the overall share price. 4. Understand historic trading volumes. At the very bottom of the chart, you can see many small, vertical lines.
Can I read stock charts?
A great starting point is being able to read and understand stock charts. Yes, that doesn’t sound all that exciting, but doing this gives you an advantage when you want to truly analyze a stock to buy. In the article, I’ll break down the essentials of a stock chart and explain the key things you need to focus on.
Why is stochastics a good indicator?
Stochastics is a favorite technical indicator because of the accuracy of its findings. It is easily perceived both by seasoned veterans and new technicians, and it tends to help all investors make a good entry and exit decisions on their holdings .
What is stochastics in financials?
In the late 1950s, George Lane developed stochastics, an indicator that measures the relationship between an issue's closing price and its price range over a predetermined period of time. 1 To this day, stochastics is a favored technical indicator because it is easy to understand and has a high degree of accuracy in indicating whether it's time to buy or sell a security.
What does 14 mean in stochastics?
Stochastics is used to show when a stock has moved into an overbought or oversold position . Fourteen is the mathematical number most often used in the time mode. Depending on the technician's goal, it can ...
Why use stochastics?
Stochastics are used to show when a stock has moved into an overbought or oversold position. it can be beneficial to use stochastics in conjunction with and an oscillator like the relative strength index (RSI) together.
What line is used to measure stochastics?
Stochastics is measured with the K line and the D line. But it is the D line that we follow closely, for it will indicate any major signals in the chart. Mathematically, the K line looks like this:
How long does a chartist look at a sector?
For a long-term view of a sector, the chartist would start by looking at 14 months of the entire industry's trading range .
Why is it important to understand stock charts?
Understanding how to read stock charts is an important part of technical analysis and has become virtually essential for any risk-taker looking to achieve long-term success in the financial markets. For traders, knowing how to interpret stock charts opens up various intraday and swing trading opportunities.
What is the yield of a stock?
Yield: A stock’s yield is the percentage of its price that is paid out as a dividend. For example, if a stock is priced at $100 per share and pays a quarterly dividend of $1 per share, then the annual yield on that stock would be $4, which represents a dividend yield of 4% of the $100 share price.
What is reverse stock split?
A reverse stock split is the reverse of a stock split. For example, a stock trading at $1 per share has a reverse 10 to 1 stock split. For every 10 shares owned, the stockholder would subsequently have 1 share at $10 per share.
Why do stocks split?
Stock splits generally occur when a stock has risen significantly enough to make the stock price too high for average investors to buy in round lots of 100 shares. The stock split makes the stock available to more investors and generally fuels more demand, often causing the stock price to gain after the split.
What is trend reading?
Reading trend lines is a way to assess whether a price trend exists for a particular stock. Price trends are directional movements that consist of a set of higher highs and higher lows in a stock’s price.
Do you have to take splits into account when reading stock charts?
Stock splits and reverse stock splits are generally adjusted for on a stock’s price chart on the day the split occurs. You do not have to take splits into account when reading stock charts produced by professional charting services or trading platforms.
Does Benzinga recommend investing in stocks?
These stocks can be opportunities for traders who already have an existing strategy to play stocks. Benzinga does not recommend trading or invest ing in low -priced stocks if you haven’t had at least a couple of years of experience in the stock market. For a full statement of our disclaimers, please click here.
What is reading stock charts?
Reading stock charts, or stock quotes, is a crucial skill in being able to understand how a stock is performing, what is happening in the broader market and how that stock is projected to perform. Knowing the basics can help investors make better decisions and are a vital first step in getting into and understanding investing. TST Recommends.
What is stock chart?
A stock chart or table is a set of information on a particular company's stock that generally shows information about price changes, current trading price, historical highs and lows, dividends, trading volume and other company financial information.
What does it mean when a stock closes?
The close price is perhaps more significant than the open price for most stocks. The close is the price at which the stock stopped trading during normal trading hours (after-hours trading can impact the stock price as well). If a stock closes above the previous close, it is considered an upward movement for the stock (and will impact things like candlestick charts, which we'll get to later). Vice versa, if a stock's close price is below the previous day's close, the stock is showing a downward movement.
What are the lines of support and resistance on a stock chart?
Still, another important aspect to examine on a stock chart are lines of support and resistance. Whenever a stock trades up or down, it generally falls within what are called support and resistance lines. Essentially, the support line is a certain price that the stock generally doesn't drop beneath - it "supports" the stock upward and keeps it from trading below that price given market signals. Conversely, the resistance line is a certain price that the stock typically doesn't trade above - it "resists" the stock pushing through that top price.
What are the two axes on a stock chart?
Every stock chart has two axes - the price axis and the time axis. The horizontal (or bottom) axis shows the time period selected for the stock chart. This can generally be customized to show anything from a year time period (or even multiple years) to a day.
How to calculate market capitalization?
A company's market capitalization is calculated by multiplying the company's total number of shares outstanding (shares of stock the company has issued to the public) by the current share price of one share of stock.
How to find P/E ratio?
The P/E ratio is found by dividing the current stock price by the earnings per share for the past year (four quarters).
What is candlestick chart?
The candlestick chart resembles a bar chart in many ways. Both relay the same information. However, a candlestick chart focuses more attention on the opening and closing prices (learn when to enter a stop loss vs stop limit order ).
How long does a daily chart take to read?
A daily chart works well to analyze time periods of over six weeks. It is also an ideal charts to “read” the market in general. The following price data commonly displays on charts with each bar or candlestick representing your selected time interval.
What does each candlestick represent on a chart?
On a monthly chart, each candlestick or bar represents a month. Likewise, on a weekly chart, each one represents a week. Then on a daily chart, it’s a day. On an hourly chart, it’s an hour, then so on, right down to ticks. Take our candlesticks course to learn how to read candlesticks charts.
How long do weekly charts last?
Likewise, weekly charts also offer longer-term data analysis usually for periods over six months. Check out our trading service to learn more about how to read trading charts with different trading styles.
Why do we use line charts?
The line constitutes the closing prices for a set time frame. Although it doesn’t provide as much information as most charts, it spotlights the closing prices. Line charts help traders see trends more easily. The reason is that it focuses solely on what many traders consider the most important price data.
What is intraday chart?
Intraday charts commonly used include hourly, 15-minute, 5-minute, and 2-minute charts. Which chart is best for intraday? The hourly chart is the most popular, but some traders swear by tick charts.
What is stochastic oscillator?
Lane in the 1950s, the stochastic oscillator is one of a handful of momentum metrics used by analysts and traders to predict potential reversals. Instead of measuring price or volume, the stochastic oscillator compares the most recent closing price to the range for a given period. The standard period is 14 days, though this ...
Is the stochastic oscillator range bound?
The stochastic oscillator is range-bound, meaning it is always between 0 and 100. This makes it a useful indicator of overbought and oversold conditions. Traditionally, readings over 80 are considered in the overbought range, and readings under 20 are considered oversold.

Stock Chart Construction – Lines, Bars, Candlesticks
Looking at A Stock Chart
- Below is a year-to-date daily chart of Apple Inc. (AAPL), courtesy of stockcharts.com. This chart is a candlestick chart, with white candles showing up days for the stock and red candles showing down days. In addition, this chart has several technical indicators added: a 50-period moving average and a 200-period moving average, appearing as blue an...
The Importance of Volume
- Volume appears on nearly every stock chart that you’ll find. That’s because trading volume is considered a critical technical indicator by nearly every stock investor. On the chart above, in addition to showing the total level of trading volume for each day, days with greater buying volume are indicated with blue bars and days with greater selling volume are indicated with red …
Basic Volume Patterns
- There are four basic volume patterns that traders typically watch as indicators. High volume trading on Up Days – This is a bullishindication that a stock’s price will continue to rise Low volume trading on Down Days– This is also a bullish indication since it indicates that on days when the stock’s price falls back a bit, not many investors are involved in the trading. Therefore, …
Using Technical Indicators
- In analyzing stock charts for stock market investing, investors use a variety of technical indicators to help them more precisely probable price movement, to identify trends, and to anticipate market reversals from bullish trends to bearish trends and vice-versa. One of the most commonly used technical indicators is a moving average. The moving averages that are most frequently applied …
The Importance of The 200-Day Moving Average
- The 200-day moving average is considered by most analysts as a critical indicator on a stock chart. Traders who are bullish on a stock want to see the stock’s price remain above the 200-day moving average. Bearish traders who are selling short a stock want to see the stock price stay below the 200-day moving average. If a stock’s price crosses from below the 200-day moving av…
Trend and Momentum Indicators
- There is virtually an endless list of technical indicators for traders to choose from in analyzing a chart. Experiment with various indicators to discover the ones that work best for your particular style of trading, and as applied to the specific stocks that you trade. You’ll likely find that some indicators work very well for you in forecasting price movement for some stocks but not for othe…
Analyzing Trends
- When reviewing a stock chart, in addition to determining the stock’s overall trend, up or down, it’s also helpful to look to identify aspects of a trend such as the following: 1. How long has a trend been in place?Stocks do not stay in uptrends or downtrends indefinitely. Eventually, there are always trend changes. If a trend has continued for a long period of time without any significant c…
Identifying Support and Resistance Levels
- Stock charts can be particularly helpful in identifying support and resistance levels for stocks. Support levels are price levels where you usually seeing fresh buying coming in to support a stock’s price and turn it back to the upside. Conversely, resistance levels represent prices at which a stock has shown a tendency to fail in attempting to move higher, turning back to the downside…
Conclusion – Using Stock Chart Analysis
- Stock chart analysis is not infallible, not even in the hands of the most expert technical analyst. If it were, every stock investor would be a multi-millionaire. However, learning to read a stock chart will definitely help turn the odds of being a successful stock market investor in your favor. Stock chart analysis is a skill, and like any other skill, one only becomes an expert at it through practice…