So, you have been researching current events and stock trading software. Good for you! Just jumping right in and familiarizing yourself with the stock market is one of the best things that you can do to begin learning how to successfully invest. With that being said, there is a lot of information that is being rapidly thrown at you that it can be difficult if you aren’t a seasoned investor to make sense of it. One of the main tools that investors use to predict the direction that a company’s value may go within a specific time period is to use a stock chart. But there are so many. Below, we have listed the main charts that investors use, what they show, and some of the pros and cons of using them.
Line Stock Chart
Perhaps the most elementary chart. It is just a solid line that either moves up or down. Each point (wherever the line moves) is at a fixed interval, which can be set to whatever amount of time has passed whether it be minutes, hours, days, or even months. At the end of the time period that it represents, you will be able to draw a line from the beginning of the graph to the end and either have a line that is pointing upward (increasing in value) or downward (decreasing in value).
This is great for a quick look at whether the company is increasing or decreasing in value over a certain period of time. However, it will not show the opening price, highs, or lows which are helpful in determining if that time period the market was bullish or bearish.
Candlestick Charts (Japanese Method)
This is a highly visual method of looking at the overview of a stock’s behavior over a set period of time. Each stick will look like a candlestick and some will be filled and others will be open. They give a quick look at what the price opening, high, low, and closing prices are as well as volume. This is a great way to get a lot of information really quickly about a particular company, but there are multiple kinds of candlestick charts, which can be somewhat intimidating to the new investor by displaying too much information.
High Low Close Bar Stock Charts (HLC)
These are somewhere between the line chart and candlestick. They will show the stock’s highest point, lowest, and the price at which it is closed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t show the opening price which is an essential frame of reference when determining if the stock’s price has increased or decreased. However, it will show a greater range of days that the stock was being traded and if it is closing near the high, it will help identify if it the marketing is being bullish, or bearish if it is closing near its low.
Open High Low Close Bar Chart (OHLC)
This adds the opening price that the HLC stock chart left off. It will give the frame of reference so it will indicate if the value of the stock is increasing or decreasing, and the height of the bar shows the volume at which it is trading. It doesn’t show as much information as the candlestick charts and others that incorporate it, but it does give a more informational look at a stock’s behavior than just the simple line chart so you can make a more educated guess on whether the stock is going to increase in value by the time that you want to sell. This one is also popular among professional investors.
Conclusion
There are many different types of stock charts and, at the end of the day, each have something that is good and something that could be better, but the best one is the one that gives you the information you need to make a good decision. If you work better with looking at a simple charts and making sense of the news, then that is the right one. If you need the information presented more visually than reading, then you may find the candlestick charts to be better for you. At www.abovethegreenline.com, you can have access to a wide array of technical analyses to help you make a wise choice whether to buy or sell. This is mostly personal preference. So, you will be best served by learning the one that you work best with and learn it as well as you can.
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