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Stock Chart Types

Here we will look at the 3 most commonly used stock chart types. Firstly there are candlestick charts.

Candlestick Charts

A weekly candlestick chart of the Microsoft stock looks like this:

Candlestick chart patterns show us the open, low, high and close. Candlesticks can be used in any time period as shown below:

candlestick

OHLC Charts

Next we have OHLC Charts. The OHLC part simply stands for open, high, low and close. They are also commonly referred to as bar charts.

OHLC charts are fairly similar to candlestick charts. I will show you a picture of a OHLC chart and you will probably understand how they work if you have mastered the candlestick chart. We will still look at the Microsoft stock.

If you need a more detailed look at what these bars mean, here goes:

Line Charts

Line charts are probably the easiest chart to understand. They simply connect past price points together. The software or website you use for charting will usually allow you to chart either the open, low, high or close prices for a stock.

Using the Microsoft weekly chart again, let's see how it looks with the weekly close prices plotted on a line chart.

As you can see, a line chart can provide a nice smooth chart to make it nice and easy to pick out trends.

When analysising a particular stock, the type of chart you use is entirely down to personal preference. It can often be helpful to use more than one type of chart.

If you are looking for a website for viewing stock charts, the one I often use is stockcharts.com.