Reading a Basic Price Chart

What you’ll learn

• •A candlestick represents open, close, high, and low price for a chosen time period.
• •The candle's body shows the open-to-close range; its colour shows whether price rose or fell.
• •Wicks (shadows) show the high and low extremes reached during that period.
• •Volume shows how much was traded — higher volume generally makes a price move more significant.
• •An uptrend shows generally rising closes and higher lows; a downtrend shows the reverse.
• •Short-term charts are noisy and shouldn't be the sole basis for a decision, especially as a beginner.
• •Convincing-looking charts are sometimes weaponised in pump-and-dump schemes — a chart alone proves nothing.