When you first start in your trading career it can truly seem overwhelming. If you have never even looked at trading again then the chart wil seem like Greek. What on earth is going on with these charts. Well I will try to give you a cliff notes version here. If you want more in depth reading there are books dedicated to the subject at the bottom.

How to Read the Stock Charts

Apple Stock Chart

When you are looking at a stock chart the absolute basic is going to be the price vertically and the time horizontally. Above is an example of the daily chart for Apple

When you look at charts there are different time frame that you can look at to help you make your assessment.

Apple stock chart Multiple Time Frames

Here you can see a 5 minute chart, 45 min chart, Daily Chart and a Weekly Chart. The charting package I am using here is Tradingview.com I absolutely love them as you can transfer your setup from desktop to the app on your handheld device of Apple or Android.

Why do you want to look at a chart on multiple time frames?

It is fairly easy to find an entry on one time frame, but you want to make sure that all of the time frames are showing you good reason to enter. If you see one that is showing a different direction you might want to be cautious knowing that you could be going along the trend.

All of the candlesticks are derived from the volume and price action over a time basis. The smaller the time frame the more erative the movement can be and could shake you out. The time frames tend to be better for scalping a move, but could trick you into getting out of a good trade by micro managing the trade.

Would you believe that sometimes I will look solely at the volume traded on a book map to know where the support and resistance lie for the day. I will also track the biggest buyers and sellers positions as well as where GSCO (Goldman Sachs) is on the book (level 2).

When I see the big guys moving their targets up or GSCO moving their sell up, I have noticed after time they continue to push the stock up to their targets. The same is true if I see the stock price drop and the buy targets dropping as well.

All of this will determine the trend, but does it correspond with the overall trendline?

What is the Trendline ?

Trendlines are a visual representation of support and resistance in any time frame. They show direction and speed of price, and also describe patterns during periods of price contraction. This is from Investopedia.com

Ok lets get into the visuals of trendlines now.

appl trendspider

Here is an AAPL stock chart with the yellow trend lines from Trendspider.com You can see the trendlines that the algorithym has automatically drawn as potential spots of resistance and support.

When you have a trend line broken and volume behind it that is when the price action will tend to heat up. Many times shorts and computers will put their stops just above a trend line and the same is true that longs and algos going long will analyze and put a stop just below a trend line to act as support.

The cool thing about Trendspider is that you can overlay timeframes so you have multiple time frame analysis on one chart. So far this is the only software that I have seen that gives you the ability to do that without having to write your own custom script.

As you can see I also have moving averages on my chart and what is very cool is the multiple time fram analysis will also used the dashed lines for the higher timeframes for the moving averages as well. So I can see the trend lines from another time frame and also the moving averages.


There is not just one time frame that every trader or algo uses for trading so being aware of other walls of resistance or support to act as a hurdle is great profit taking and target setting.

Stock Market Prices Today

The stock market prices today are quite volatile with Trump, FOMC, Trade Wars and more. When you are prepared and have a plan trading becomes much easier. It can be black and white once you set aside your emotions and look at it in a scientific manner.

You must remember there is no rationality in the market and it will always be right. It is how you react to the price action of the market that will allow you to capture gains.

Top 5 books about stock charts

As of August 2019 I have partnered as an educator in The Training Pit that was created to help people learn from zero knowledge or to reset your training. 

I hope this post has helped you learn a bit more about stocks and charting. As you can tell helping people is very fulfilling and the whole reason why this blog began in 2015. I will be sure to write more how to in the area to help you in your journey.

I love hearing feedback from you. It makes my trading more personal and I like to hear how I can help you. If you would like to be in Training Pit with me sign up here or if you want one on one training you can email me jane@thedarkpools.com You can contact me here or Twitter (@ItsAirplaneJane), Instagram (missairplanejane), LinkedIn and Facebook (@sugarairplanejane) or YouTube

The tool I use for scanning and alerting is Trade Ideas who offer an always free trading room. You can receive 5% off with Promo code CARPEPROFIT15 all caps when you sign up here for your first year or month

Trade Ideas will be offering the quarterly full access test drive of their software their software in Nov 2019 for the cost of data fees $9. 

Another amazing software is Trendspider that has a new innovative rain drop candlestick that shows the volume for the morning session and afternoon session as far as the weight of it in price action. You can try them for free for 7 days here and receive 20% off with MTS20

My book is available at Amazon FMJ Trust Transition Trade: How Successful Traders Said It, Did It, and Lived It . As well as  Barnes and Noble, IndigoChapters,and more.

For my charts I use tradingview.com which offer free charting and paid services.

Also Stocks To Trade that has a 2 week $7 trial

This blog is for informational and educational purposes. I am not a registered securities broker-dealer or an investment adviser. The information here is not intended as securities brokerage, investment or as an offer or solicitation of an offer to sell or buy, or as an endorsement, recommendation or sponsorship of any security or fund.