Series · Technical analysis

How to read a chart.

19 guides in the order to read them: the candles, then the levels, then the structure, then the patterns, then the indicators. Each one teaches one idea, and the newer ones carry a live example read by the same engine that reads a screenshot on our free chart analyzer. Nothing here tells you what to buy or sell. It teaches you to see what’s on the chart.

Part 1 · The candles

  1. 01What Is Technical Analysis? How Traders Read PriceWhat chart reading is, and what it isn't. · 9 min read
  2. 02What Is a Candlestick Chart? How to Read OneHow one candle encodes a whole session. · 8 min read
  3. 03Candlestick Patterns: Which Ones Actually Work?The handful of candle shapes worth knowing, and how much they're worth. · 12 min read

Part 2 · The levels

  1. 04Support and Resistance: How to Read the Two Lines That Decide a ChartThe floor and the ceiling. Everything else is built on these two lines. · 8 min read
  2. 05Swing Highs and Swing Lows: Why Price Keeps Stopping in the Same PlacesWhere levels come from, and why a level is a zone. · 10 min read
  3. 06Has This Level Been Tested Before? How to Read a Level's HistoryThe history of a level is what decides whether to trust it. · 8 min read

Part 3 · The structure

  1. 07How to Draw a Trendline: Three Touches, One Line, and What a Break MeansThe diagonal level: three touches, one line, and what a break of it means. · 8 min read
  2. 08Break of Structure: When a Trend Continues, and When It Quietly EndsA trend is a sequence of swings. Here's how it ends. · 9 min read
  3. 09Breakout or Fakeout: How to Tell Before It Costs YouThe decision at a level: real break or false one, and the three checks. · 9 min read
  4. 10The Retest: What It Is and Why the Entry Is ThereThe return to the broken level, and why the entry goes there. · 8 min read
  5. 11Why Price Spikes Through Your Stop, Then ReversesWhy price so often pokes just past a level before turning. · 8 min read

Part 4 · The patterns

  1. 12What Are Chart Patterns? Why the Shapes Are Just Structure With a NameDouble tops, head and shoulders, triangles: what a pattern is and why it's structure. · 12 min read
  2. 13Bull Flag and Bear Flag: The Pause Before the Trend ContinuesThe most common continuation pattern, both ways up. · 9 min read
  3. 14What the Higher Timeframe Tells You (and Why Your Chart Keeps Ignoring You)The slower chart your chart lives inside. · 8 min read

Part 5 · The indicators

  1. 15What Is a Moving Average? Why Being Late Is the Whole PointThe average as a trend filter and a moving level. · 12 min read
  2. 16What Is RSI? The Gauge Everyone Reads BackwardsMomentum, and the three things RSI is actually for. · 12 min read
  3. 17What Is MACD? The Two Moving Averages in DisguiseThe gap between two averages, and what it can and can't see. · 12 min read
  4. 18What Are Bollinger Bands? What They Measure, and What They Don'tVolatility as a band around price. · 10 min read
  5. 19What Is a Pivot Point? The Level You Don't Have to DrawYesterday's range as today's grid. · 12 min read

Read your own chart

Every example in this series was read by our chart analyzer. It reads your screenshot the same way: the levels and their history, the formation and its state, the two prices that decide it. Free, no account, one read a week.

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