{"id":1475,"date":"2022-09-29T07:23:53","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T11:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theforage.wpengine.com\/?p=1475"},"modified":"2024-07-23T12:53:46","modified_gmt":"2024-07-23T16:53:46","slug":"read-stock-charts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theforage.wpengine.com\/skills\/read-stock-charts","title":{"rendered":"How to Read Stock Charts for Beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stock charts are graphs that show how a company’s publicly traded shares are performing. Understanding how to read stock charts is a vital skill for both professional and amateur investors<\/a>. Using a stock market graph, you can learn about a company’s historical financial performance and watch how a company’s stock price fluctuates throughout the day when the market is open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Are Stock Charts Used For?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stock charts are used by investing professionals, like investment bankers<\/a>, investors, financial analysts<\/a>, securities traders<\/a>, and brokers<\/a>. The information you can glean from a stock chart helps inform investing decisions and track business performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But stock charts are also used by average people outside of careers in finance<\/a>. Some may read stock charts because they have investments in the stock market. Others watch stock market graphs because the performance of the market can impact the overall economy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

>>MORE:<\/strong> Learn the difference between a broker and a trader<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On stock market charts or graphs, green lines going upwards are generally good, while red lines trending down are typically bad. However, stock charts provide much more information than that. By reading a stock chart, you can understand a company’s performance over a number of years, see how much the stock is trading at, look at recent changes in its stock price, and infer details about the company’s overall value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stocks are traded on specific markets. For publicly traded companies in the United States, shares are typically bought and sold on either the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market (NASDAQ) or the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). <\/p>\n\n\n\n\t

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How To Read Stock Charts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Stock charts can be overwhelming at first glance since they show a massive amount of information in a relatively small space. However, once you understand the basic components of a stock market graph, they become fairly straightforward. Let’s look at an example of a stock chart and go through the different components and details and what they mean. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Do Stock Charts Look Like<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Company stocks are traded under a stock symbol or ticker \u2014 a short-hand representation of the company, typically five letters long or less. For example, stock symbols for some of the biggest tech companies<\/a> include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n