
- Identify the trend line. 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. The next thing you’ll want to look at are the lines of resistance and support. ...
- Know when dividends and stock splits occur. A dividend is when the company (the board of directors) decides to give a portion of its earnings back to its shareholders.
- Understand historic trading volumes. At the very bottom of the chart you can see many small, vertical lines. ...
How to use stock scanners to find the best stocks?
Using stock scanners I can choose the specific type of stocks I want to see. I can make complex scanners to look for specific chart patterns or I can use simple scanners to look for broad matches such as stocks that just reported earnings in the last 24hrs. Day trading is a difficult career that we can make a little easier by using the best ...
How to use stock scanners to find hot stocks?
Types of Stock Scanners
- Fundamental Stock Scanners. Wanna guess which types of traders use fundamental scanners? ...
- Technical Stock Scanners. Traders who scan for technicals can set their scanners to look for certain price action, chart patterns, technical indicators, or trading volume criteria.
- Post-Market Stock Scanners. ...
- Intraday Stock Scanners. ...
How do I access my stocks?
How to invest in stocks in six steps
- Decide how you want to invest in the stock market. There are several ways to approach stock investing. ...
- Choose an investing account. Generally speaking, to invest in stocks, you need an investment account. ...
- Learn the difference between investing in stocks and funds. ...
- Set a budget for your stock market investment. ...
- Focus on investing for the long-term. ...
How to use finviz to screen for stocks?
I use the following Finviz settings to scan for gaps in premarket:
- Go to screener
- Chose “technical”
- Sort by column “GAP”
- Set “Auto Refresh” to 10s

How do you read a stock market screen?
Reading the Ticker Tape The unique characters used to identify the company. The price per share for the particular trade (the last bid price). Shows whether the stock is trading higher or lower than the previous day's closing price. The difference in price from the previous day's close.
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 a stock bar chart?
Each bar has a vertical line that shows the highest and lowest price reached during the period. The opening price is marked by a small horizontal line on the left of the vertical line, and the closing price is marked by a small horizontal line on the right of the vertical line.
How do you screen win stocks?
Screening for Stock Market WinnersPrice-to-book-value ratio less than 1.00;Accelerating quarterly earnings;Positive five-year growth rate;Positive pretax profit margin;Relative strength rank of at least 70;Relative strength rank of the stock in the current quarter is greater than the rank in the previous quarter;More items...
How do you predict if a stock will go up or down?
We want to know if, from the current price levels, a stock will go up or down. The best indicator of this is stock's fair price. When fair price of a stock is below its current price, the stock has good possibility to go up in times to come.
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.
What do the lines on a stock chart mean?
Trendlines, also known as bounding lines, are lines drawn on a stock chart that connect two or more price points. Since stock prices tend to trend, trendlines that connect the highs or lows in the stock's price history can help identify the current trend and predict what the stock price might do in the future.
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.
What do the numbers mean on stock charts?
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 screen a stock quickly?
0:4510:04How To Screen For Winning Stocks - Full Walkthrough - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipAnd as you entered freeways you can see on the top left hand corner there's this screener. ButtonMoreAnd as you entered freeways you can see on the top left hand corner there's this screener. Button you just click onto it.
What is a good stock screener?
That makes TradingView our pick as the best stock screener for global investing. As a stock screener, TradingView has it all, including a solid offering of fundamental, economic and financial screening criteria and extensive charting functionalities built on advanced HTML5 technology.
How do you pick a stock?
7 things an investor should consider when picking stocks:Trends in earnings growth.Company strength relative to its peers.Debt-to-equity ratio in line with industry norms.Price-earnings ratio as an indicator of valuation.How the company treats dividends.Effectiveness of executive leadership.More items...
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 the ticker symbol on a stock?
The ticker symbol is the symbol that is used on the stock exchange to delineate a given stock. For example, Apple's ticker is ( AAPL) - Get Report on Nasdaq, while Snapchat's ticker is ( SNAP) - Get Report on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The ticker is usually found under a column titled "ticker," or, in some cases, right next to the name of the stock in parentheses.
What do the green and red boxes on a candlestick mean?
Candlestick charts look a bit more complex, but typically use clear or green boxes to indicate periods when the price of the stock closed higher (bullish) and red or pink boxes when the stock closed lower (bearish) than the previous day. The candlestick chart uses the stock's open, high, low and close prices to chart trends.
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 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 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.
There are 5 basic components to reading stock charts
The combination of letters, numbers, and arrows can give you a surprising amount of information about a particular investment.
1. Ticker Symbol
This is the series of letters that represent a company being traded on an exchange.
2. Volume
Next, you have the volume for the trade being quoted. This is how many shares of this stock are being traded on a given day. Since securities (stocks, bonds, and funds) are traded in really large quantities, the volume is listed in thousands (K) or millions (M).
3. Price Traded (Trade Value)
This is the price per share. This number represents the price at which the stock was last bought and sold. This could also be expressed as the ‘trade value,’ or the value of the share during the previous trade.
4. Change Direction
An arrow pointing up or down will indicate whether a stock is trading higher or lower than the previous day’s closing price.
5. Change Amount
This builds upon the arrow we just learned to identify and tells us how much the price of a stock has changed since the previous day’s closing price—it indicates dollars and cents.
Pay attention to color
Green = Trading higher than the previous day’s close. Red = Trading lower than the previous day’s close. Blue/White = Unchanged from the previous day’s close.
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 is it called when you own stock?
An individual who owns stock in a company is called a shareholder and is eligible to claim part of the company’s residual assets and earnings (should the company ever be dissolved). The terms "stock", "shares", and "equity" are used interchangeably. price movement from any stock chart.
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 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.
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.
What is stock screening?
Stock screening is the process of searching for companies that meet certain financial criteria. A stock screener has three components: A database of companies. A set of variables. A screening engine that finds the companies that satisfy those variables and generates a list of matches. Using a screener is quite easy.
How do stock screeners work?
Day traders generally use stock screeners to help them choose which stocks deserve their attention from the thousands available on global exchanges. You can use these same tools to help you make better decisions about the stocks in which you invest your money.
What is the biggest challenge with using screeners?
The big challenge with using screeners is knowing what criteria to use for your search. The hundreds of variables make the possibilities for different combinations nearly endless. Screeners are extremely flexible, but if you don't know what you're looking for or why, they can't do much for you.
Can stock screeners be used for research?
Remember, stock screeners are not the magic pill for selecting stocks. Nothing will ever replace good old-fashioned nose- to-the-grindstone research. However, screens can be a good place to start your research process as they can save time and narrow your options down to a more manageable group.
Is it easy to pick a good stock?
Selecting good stocks isn't easy. The sheer volume of companies makes zeroing in on a good stock difficult and the volumes of data on the internet don't make things any easier. In fact, it's hard to sort out the useful information from all the worthless data.
Do stock screeners know about news?
As mentioned, these screeners won't necessarily know about news that affects certain companies.
How long is the stock symbol?
This is the shorthand symbol used to identify the stock when looking it up for research or purchase. For stocks the symbol is usually 1–4 letters long, although it can be longer.
What is a stock quote?
A stock quote is often an investor’s “first stop” to quickly check a prospective stock’s price, trading range, dividend, and P/E ratio. There are many different versions of stock quotes that provide a wide range of information. Since most investors use Google for their stock lookups, I thought I’d use their simple stock quote as an example.
Is there a substitute for buying and selling stocks?
There’s simply no replacement for buying and selling your own stocks. If you need a place to start, there are two tools I recommend to all new investors: #1) The Motley Fool is a stock recommendation service. Every month they share their top stock picks, along with a detailed research report.
Is price earnings ratio the best valuation?
While price-earnings ratio is the most classic valuation metric, it’s far from the best. For several reasons, it has limited ability to predict whether a stock is truly undervalued or overvalued.
Can I use TradingView for free?
You can use TradingView 100% free. Here’s what I recommend: Take stock picks from The Motley Fool and then research the best time to buy them using TradingView. That way you combine fundamental research ( what to buy) with technical research ( when to buy) to find the best stocks to buy now.
What does it mean when you look up a stock quote?
When you look up a stock quote, there a variety of numbers, prices and diagrams that will appear. Understanding what they all mean will help you make an informed decision when purchasing a stock.
What is stock chart?
stock charts come in a variety of formats and have a whole investing technique based around them. They all track pricing data, usually the OHLC (open, high, low close), but they can display this information in different styles (lines, bars, candlesticks), different date ranges (day, week, month, year, 5 years, 10 years) and other information like volume, moving averages and dozens of other indicators.
What does volume mean in stocks?
Volume. This indicates the number of shares that have traded hands today. Some stocks may trade millions of shares each day, and others only trade a few hundred or even zero (the higher the volume, the more liquid the stock is).
How much is the Fool service in 2021?
Many analysts are saying that the BULL market will continue into 2021 with the Biden Presidency, so make sure you have the best stocks! Normally the Fool service is priced at $199 per year but they are currently offering it for just $99/year on THIS NEW SUBSCRIBER PAGE .
What is market cap?
Is the total dollar market value of all of a company's outstanding shares. Market cap is calculated by multiplying a company's shares outstanding by the current market price of one share. This figure determines the company's relative size.

Stock Chart Construction – Lines, Bars, Candlesticks
Looking at A Stock Chart
The Importance of Volume
Basic Volume Patterns
Using Technical Indicators
- 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 and red lines on the chart; the relat…
The Importance of The 200-Day Moving Average
- 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 …
Trend and Momentum Indicators
- 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 in...
Analyzing Trends
- 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 …
Identifying Support and Resistance Levels
- 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…
Conclusion – Using Stock Chart Analysis
- 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…