Stocks Chart Types: Line, Candle and Bar
A Stocks Trading chart is a graphical representation of stocks price movement of a stocks instrument over a given period of time.
Drawn on a grid and the user is at liberty to choose which stocks chart timeframe they want to trade with. The stocks trader may choose to use hourly charts, daily charts or even 1 minute chart timeframes.
To draw stocks charts, three methods are used. The methods used to draw the stock charts defines the type of stocks chart.
The three types of stocks charts are: - Candlesticks Charts - Bar Charts
- Line charts
- Bar charts
- Candlesticks stocks charts - Most popular
Line Chart
A single line is drawn from one closing stocks trading price to the next, forming a continuous line.
This type of chart provides very little information on the chart and is therefore not very popular among stock traders. In fact this type of stocks chart is rarely ever used.
Line Chart in Stock - This type of chart leaves out important information about stocks price movement. Information such as opening, high and low point of the stocks price which are not represented on the trade graph.
This makes this type of stocks line chart to be considered sketchy by stocks technical analysts.
The stocks chart below shows an example of a stocks line chart.
Bar Chart
Stock Trading Bar Charts - This type of chart shows the opening, closing, the high and the low, for a particular stocks price interval and is represented by bars that look like the ones drawn below - hence its name bar charts
- Bar Charts - bar chart has a vertical bar showing the total stocks price movement.
- Left horizontal bar the opening
- Right horizontal bar the closing
- High and low denoted by the highest and lowest point
However, these stocks bar charts are not very easy to work with, especially when they are not magnified. It becomes very hard to interpret the bar charts with ease when trading the stock trading market thus making them not very popular among stock traders.
A Bar chart that is not magnified makes it hard to view the opening and closing stocks price as illustrated by this example:
Candle Chart
Candlesticks Charts - This is the most widely used type of stocks charts, they resemble candles, thus their name - candlesticks charts.
Candlesticks charts shows the opening, closing, the high and the low of a particular stocks price interval.
The range between the open stocks price and the close stocks price is called the body of the candlestick.
Stocks Trading candlesticks charts is the most popular type of stocks charts among online traders because it is the easiest to interpret when trading the stock market. Stocks Trading candlestick charts also gives a lot of information about the stocks price movement. This makes candlesticks charts the most widely used type of charting in Stocks.
Candlesticks Charts
Below is an example of candlesticks charts. To learn more about stocks trading candles charts, read this topic: Technical Analysis of Japanese Candlesticks Patterns in Stocks.
How to Select These Stock Chart Types on MT4 Stocks Trading Software
To draw any of these types of stocks charts on the MetaTrader 4 Stock Platform a stocks trader can use the buttons below found on this MT4 stock platform.
Drawing Stock Charts on MetaTrader 4
- To Select a Bar Chart Click the Bar Button
- To Select a Candlesticks Chart Click the Candlestick Button
- To Select a Line Charts - Click the Line Button
