Saturday, September 24, 2011

Types of Charts

Let's take a look at the three most popular types of charts:

Line chart
Bar chart
Candlestick chart
Now, we'll explain each of the charts, and let you know what you should know about each of them.

Line Charts

A simple line chart draws a line from one closing price to the next closing price. When strung together with a line, we can see the general price movement of a currency pair over a period of time.

Here is an example of a line chart for EUR/USD:



Bar Charts

A bar chart is a little more complex. It shows the opening and closing prices, as well as the highs and lows. The bottom of the vertical bar indicates the lowest traded price for that time period, while the top of the bar indicates the highest price paid.

The vertical bar itself indicates the currency pair's trading range as a whole.

The horizontal hash on the left side of the bar is the opening price, and the right-side horizontal hash is the closing price.

Here is an example of a bar chart for EUR/USD:



Take note, throughout our lessons, you will see the word "bar" in reference to a single piece of data on a chart.

A bar is simply one segment of time, whether it is one day, one week, or one hour. When you see the word 'bar' going forward, be sure to understand what time frame it is referencing.

Bar charts are also called "OHLC" charts, because they indicate the Open, the High, the Low, and the Close for that particular currency. Here's an example of a price bar:


Open: The little horizontal line on the left is the opening price
High: The top of the vertical line defines the highest price of the time period
Low: The bottom of the vertical line defines the lowest price of the time period
Close: The little horizontal line on the right is the closing price





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