Read and customize a price chart

The chart on a stock's page shows how its price has moved, from the last few hours to the whole time it has traded. You can change how far back it goes, how it is drawn, what is laid over it, and measure any stretch of it.

#The toolbar

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• Range buttons: 1D (today), 5D, 1M, 6M, YTD (since January 1), 1Y, 5Y, 10Y, 20Y and All. Select one to redraw the chart for that period.
• Chart type: Mountain (a line with a shaded area under it, the default), Line and Candles. Hover over an icon to see its name.
• Indicators: a menu of extra lines and panes (below).
• + Compare: add another symbol to the chart (below).
• Expand chart (the magnifying glass): makes the chart fill the screen. Press Esc to shrink it again.

The line is green when the stock is up over the period shown and red when it is down. On the 1D chart the lightly shaded stretches at either end are the trading sessions before the open and after the close, and a dashed line marks the previous close.

#Read a day, a week, a year

Move the pointer along the chart. A dashed crosshair follows it, the price appears on the right edge, the date or time appears along the bottom, and the line under the chart gives the details for that point.

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In a candlestick chart each candle is one period, a day on the six-month chart. The thick body runs from the open to the close: green when the close was higher than the open, red when lower. The thin line, called the wick, reaches from the low to the high. The bars at the bottom are the volume, the number of shares traded.

On a phone, touch and slide along the chart instead. With the keyboard, focus the chart and use ← and → to move the crosshair, and Esc to clear it.

#Add indicators

Indicators are calculations laid over the price to help you see a trend. Open the Indicators menu and tick any of them.

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Indicators are tools for reading a chart, not signals to act on. They describe the past.

#Compare with other symbols

Select + Compare, type a ticker or a name, and pick a match or press Enter. The chart switches from price to percentage change from the start of the period, so every line starts at 0% and you compare how much each moved rather than what each costs.

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You can add up to five symbols. The line under the chart lists each symbol's change over the period. For a full table of figures side by side, see Compare stocks.

#Measure and zoom

On any range longer than one day, drag across the chart. The stretch you cover is shaded and a label gives the price change, the percentage change and how many sessions or bars it spans. When you let go, the chart zooms to that stretch, and a Reset zoom button appears. Double-click the chart, or press Esc, to zoom back out.

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