How to Read Stock Charts and Trading Patterns

Accumulation days are very positive events, because they signal underlying strength due to the fact that institutions are accumulating shares and pushing the stock price higher. The more buying investors do, the more accumulating that is going on, and thus more a stock price will rise. Bars may increase or decrease in size from one bar to the next or over a range of bars. Notice how the bars expand and contract between periods of high and low volatility. As the market becomes increasingly volatile, the bars become larger and the price swings further.

The price in US dollars is on the left Y axis while the trading time frame runs below on the X axis. Investors can see how the stock price changed over the trading day. Generally, when trading activity is heavy for a particular stock, the spread is narrower. Conversely, when there is less trading activity, and often fewer market participants in a stock, the spread tends to be wider. Buying and selling shares on stocks with a wide bid-ask spread can result in less competitive execution prices. Investors using Seeking Alpha’s Symbol pages for a particular stock can view the maximum timeline ((max)) to see a stock’s history since inception.

How Do You Read Stock Charts?

Each type of stock chart has its own strengths and weaknesses, and the best chart to use will depend on the specific information an investor is looking to analyze. https://www.bigshotrading.info/ First and foremost, you should never rely on just one technical indicator. On its own, an individual indicator does not really tell you that much.

Then you can learn to read stock charts and give yourself a massive edge when you’re investing. Being able to read stock charts is a skill you can learn quickly, and it gives you a massive edge over investors who can’t. Learning how to read stock charts may seem intimidating at first. But with some basic tips and a little practice, you’ll soon be using them to improve your stock picks and find stocks to watch. Stock chart analysis is not infallible, not even in the hands of the most expert technical analyst.

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In the short term, crossovers happen very frequently, almost too frequently to reliably take advantage of. These investors tend to make very large purchases of sales of stock. These large purchase or sales is what moves stock prices higher and lower.

• That’s because trading volume is considered a critical technical indicator by nearly every stock investor.
• To some, using them is akin to reading the intestines of a goat to try to predict the future.
• Our guide to eleven of the most important stock chart trading patterns can be applied to most financial markets and this could be a good way to start your technical analysis.
• Don’t worry, even though charting is a very deep rabbit hole once you get into it, the basics are what counts the most and what most traders go by.
• Volume plays a role in these patterns, often declining during the pattern’s formation and increasing as price breaks out of the pattern.
• It is equal to the stock price multiplied by the total number of shares.

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Bottom Line — Knowing to Read a Stock Chart Is A Must.

Like a bar chart, candlestick charts show the open, highs, lows, and close for a particular stock. The thin black line behind each colored box is called the “shadow” and shows the range of the stock price over the day. This simple guide is going to cover the main types of stock charts out there and talk about what kind of technical analysis they are good for. All in all, everything you need to get started with stocks—let’s get straight into it. If you see a “spike” in the volume of shares traded, does that correspond with some news about the company or its industry? Give yourself extra credit points if you noticed that the first and last intervals of most days are the busiest (have the highest volume).