StrategyBeginner6 min read
Reading Charts Without the Jargon
Candlesticks, trends, and support levels explained in plain English for your first chart.
Key facts
- A candlestick shows the open, close, high, and low for a period.
- An uptrend is a series of higher highs and higher lows.
- Support and resistance are price levels where markets tend to pause.
- Volume confirms whether a move has real conviction behind it.
Candlesticks 101
Each candlestick summarizes price action for a time period. The body shows where price opened and closed; the wicks show the highs and lows. Green (or hollow) usually means price rose; red (or filled) means it fell. Reading a chart is really just reading a sequence of these stories.
Trends and levels
A trend is the market's general direction. Uptrends make higher highs and higher lows; downtrends do the opposite. 'Support' is a level where buyers tend to step in, and 'resistance' is where sellers tend to appear. These aren't magic lines — they're zones where behavior often repeats.
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