12 Best Stock Charting Apps [Free + Paid Software: 2023]

If you’re an active stock trader, then you know that time is money, and quick access to the best data is critical. While the data you’ll need will depend on your trading style and the indicators you use most often, most agree that stock charts are the best tools for making informed stock trading decisions.

Although free charts will give you access to some of the most common indicators, paid options offer additional tools and analysis options for a complete analysis. Whether you’re an experienced trader or just getting your feet wet, it’s essential to know where you can get the best information and which options are ideal for different types of traders.

Below we’ll discuss the top stock charting apps, including free and paid options, so you can find the tools that work best for you.

Best Stock Charting Software and Apps—Top Picks

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Best Stock Charting Apps

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A stock charting app allows you to learn about technical analysis (TA) through employing various indicators and tools while performing screening, backtesting and forecasting for stocks.

While there are free stock charting apps, which we’ll cover below, usually the best options involve spending a bit of money.

Some of them even function as useful:

• stock trading apps and platforms
• stock news apps
• investment research websites and
• stock analysis apps and software.

The features of stock charting apps vary, so it’s important to choose one that has the tools, technical indicators and charting features you need.

Best Stock Charting Software at a Glance

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The best stock charting app for you isn’t necessarily the perfect app for someone else. Your best choice is likely one of the following:

• Best for drawing on stock charts (+ best free stock charting software): TradingView
• Best stock charting software for placing trades with hot keys on charts: IBKR
• Best brokerage with free trading charts and tools to use: TradeStation
• Best stock charting app you can install on desktop: TC2000
• Best for automating technical analysis: TrendSpider
• Best fun, easy broker with charts: Robinhood
• Best for technical indicators: MetaStock
• Best for advanced traders: Trade Ideas
• Best for market data: Seeking Alpha
• Free mobile charting app: Webull
• Best for technical analysis: FinViz
• Free stock charting app: Moomoo

Let’s look deeper into the top picks and the details of each.

Best Stock Charting Apps and Software

1. Best for Drawing on Stock Charts: TradingView

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• Available: Sign up here

TradingView is one of a handful of valuable charting platforms for technical analysis-driven stock traders on this list. Users can view stock charts, select specific indicators (RSI, Moving Averages, Bollinger Bands, etc.), add trend lines, chat with one another and do it all on repeat.

They have a robust web-based charting system with stock price data (real-time data), historical charts (1D, 5D, 1M, 3M, 6M, YTD, yearly price charts, 5Y and All-Time), strike prices, streaming charts and more. The result? Hopefully, delivering you Alpha.

TradingView works well for traders looking to gain an edge on the markets, whether the stock market, forex markets, crypto, futures or more.

TradingView is in the business of delivering competition-crushing charting and trading tools, strategies and insights for you to trade with confidence. They have some of the best stock charts and technical analysis tools. TradingView utilizes 50+ real-time data feeds, historical data, pre-built popular indicators, smart drawing tools, figure charts and valuation analysis.

You can use the platform to conduct customized technical analysis with metrics like volume indicators, MACD, backtesting, etc. Pairing this service with a TradeStation or Webull account may capture Alpha through TradingView’s stock charts.

 

2. Best for Placing Trades With Hot Keys In Charts: Interactive Brokers

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• Available: Sign up here

Interactive Brokers, founded in 1978, is one of the largest U.S. electronic trading platforms, offering traders access to stocks, bonds, funds, options, cryptocurrencies, foreign exchange, and more.

IB’s Trader Workstation (TWS) is Interactive Brokers’ flagship desktop program—a trading platform with roots back to 1995. But since then, the company has launched a number of other access points for brokerage accounts, including:

• IBKR Mobile: A powerful app for iOS and Android that allows people to trade on the go
• IBKR GlobalTrader: A simplified app for iOS and Android that targets global traders, allowing deposits in up to 23 different currencies
• Client Portal: A lighter web-based platform allowing clients to manage their account, evaluate performance, and read market news
• IBKR EventTrader: A web-based platform allowing investors to trade “event” contracts (yes-or-no questions like “Will the S&P 500 Index close above 3,900 today?”)
• IBKR Impact: A mobile app that helps investors select holdings most in line with their values.

But Workstation remains the workhorse. The platform supports investments across 150 global markets, and offers a wide variety of features, including real-time monitoring, risk management tools, paper trading—all packaged under a heavily customizable layout.

While TWS users can still select the original view, they can build their own bespoke view through Mosaic. Functions such as stock monitoring, order entry, charts, and more appear as “tiles,” sized and arranged however you want them, and you can save custom layouts designed for one or more monitors.

Trader Workstation also lets investors:

• Create example watchlists
• Use preset scans or build your own
• Create real-time trading alerts using price, time, margin, and volume
• Access more than 100 order types and algorithms to execute better trades
• Read breaking news from Reuters, Dow Jones, and other financial news outlets
• Access research from Morningstar, Zacks, and other firms

IBKR Pro, the premium IBKR product, is meant for advanced investors and active traders. While it does charge commissions on even U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, it provides better execution for trades via its IB SmartRouting, which seeks out the best available prices for stocks and options across exchanges and dark pools—possibly resulting in lower spreads that offset the commissions you pay. It also offers better margin rates than Lite (one of the company’s commission-free products), though both platforms’ rates are among the best on offer.

Pro also offers some features not available on IBKR Lite, including higher interest paid on idle cash balances, lower interest charged on margin loans, backtesting, and access to IBKR APIs, which allow you to build your own custom trading applications and even develop commercial trading software—features often used by hedge funds, Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs), and proprietary trading firms.

We should note that IBKR’s rating does get dinged (by both us and app-store users) for its sometimes buggy mobile-app experience. But the desktop app is a mainstay among advanced and professional traders.

You can visit Interactive Brokers to sign up or learn more.

 

3. Best Broker with Free Trading Charts and Tools: TradeStation

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• Available: Sign up here

TradeStation is one of the best online discount brokers for those needing a powerful stock trading platform. The service is one of the premier online trading platforms which caters to active traders looking to leverage stock analysis tools.

The platform comes equipped with brokerage services and educational resources recognized by respected industry reviewers, including powerful advanced charting and technical analysis features. Like many other online brokerage account options, the commission-free stock trading platform charges no commissions for stock and ETF trades on its TradeStation Go platform. It also assesses low fees on options and futures contracts.

TradeStation works well for its target audience: advanced, technically-minded and active traders. Beginning traders likely will be overwhelmed by this service and may even face fees. TradeStation’s technical indicators, tools, and screeners are at or near the top of the class, making it the best stock trading platform for active traders looking for an advanced charting and brokerage combo.

What Makes TradeStation Different?

TradeStation is one of the most high-powered stock trading platforms on the market. The stock trading platform helps you analyze stocks, options, ETFs, futures, and crypto markets. If you open a TradeStation brokerage account, you can use the company’s robust TradeStation Analytics platform for free. You have access to backtesting, historical intraday data, and extensive charting capabilities.

TradeStation Analytics helps you find the right opportunities in real-time, get into and out of trades, and discover hidden opportunities with technical analysis and stock charts.

You can use the commission-free TS Go platform to trade stocks and monitor and rank up to 1,000 ticker symbols in real-time with access to more than 180 technical and fundamental indicators helpful in valuing a stock and identifying likely price action.

If you’d like to purchase the analytics software without using the platform for making your trades, you can pay a monthly fee of $99 for non-professionals and $199 for professional subscribers.

Related: Best Brokerage Account Sign-Up Bonuses, Promotions and Deals

4. Best Stock Charting App You Can Install on Desktop: Worden TC2000

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• Available: Sign up here

Worden’s TC2000 is an easy to install investment research and analysis software which allows you to build watch lists, follow stock news, receive stock alerts, conduct stock scans, and sort and make personal notes on stock opportunities.

The heart and soul of TC2000 is the service’s Condition Wizard. The tool allows you to build for any condition you might think of on any indicator step-by-step. The investment software provides over 70 technical indicators with ten drawing tools.

While this doesn’t require formula writing, you can develop your own and watch “flex” conditions unfold over time.

The service also has an EasyScan service, allowing you to scan millions of data points for your conditions on the fly.

 

5. Best for Automating Technical Analysis: TrendSpider

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• Available: Sign up here
• Best for: Traders of all experience levels looking to trade more efficiently
• Platforms: Web, mobile app (Apple iOS, Android)

TrendSpider offers a comprehensive platform for traders to create, backtest, and refine trading strategies, scan and analyze the market, and time trades with precision. With its advanced tools and features, TrendSpider is designed to make trading more efficient for both novice and experienced traders.

One of TrendSpider’s top features is Smart Charts—a charting system that helps automate many of the most time-consuming aspects of technical analysis. For instance, Smart Charts can conduct full TA for any stock, ETF, or other security in less than a minute. The system also comes with more than 700 watch lists to help you seek out trading opportunities. And you can even create your own green-red Smart Checklists, which allow you to plainly see if a potential trade covers all, most, some, or none of the conditions you need to pull the trigger.

Among the platform’s other powerful tools:

• Raindrop Charts^®, which provide a new way to visualize market data, focusing on trading volume at each price level
• Alternative data offerings including information on options flow, analyst actions, market breadth, insider trades, and more
• Data Flow, which enables real-time tracking of market data for all symbols, including analyst estimates, earnings, news, and unusual options flow
• Strategy Tester, which allows users to quickly develop and test trading strategies without any coding required; users can configure entry and exit rules and explore the performance of their strategies directly on the price chart
• Backtesting capabilities for technical, non-technical, and event-based strategies; once a winning strategy is identified, users can deploy it as a trading bot with just one click
• A stock scanner that allows you to instantly test any strategy on any market and search for ideal trading opportunities. Users can mix and match conditions and timeframes, allowing them to express any view in a single scan. The platform also provides a range of pre-made scans to help users get started.

TrendSpider’s mobile app ensures traders are always connected to their charts and scanners, while the Chrome extension allows users to access real-time charts while browsing the web. The platform also offers extensive educational resources through TrendSpider University and detailed documentation for its features.

The platform also supports integration with external systems using webhooks, enabling traders to build custom alerts and bots that interact with social media channels, private chat servers, email, or order routers connected to brokerage accounts. TrendSpider’s SignalStack service can turn any signal or alert on TrendSpider into a live order in a trader’s account.

Learn more about the platform’s capabilities or sign up for TrendSpider today.

 

6. Best Fun, Easy Broker for Advanced Charting: Robinhood

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• Available: Sign up here

Robinhood became the first free stock app to slash trading commissions to $0, earning a slot on this list of best brokerage accounts for beginners. This shook up the industry and caused several competitors to rethink how they make money and follow suit. Many merged as a result in the hopes of shedding costs and remaining competitive to this investing startup. Likewise, many new apps like Robinhood have cropped up in recent years.

Robinhood’s trading platform offers a simple and easy-to-use design. The online stock broker boasts free stock trading alongside index funds, options, and cryptocurrencies. The once simple, no-frills app now offers advanced charting features to provide users more in-depth information to identify clear entry and exit positions.

The app’s advanced charts provide the following features:

• real-time data
• scrubbing feature to allow investors to compare their securities at specific points in time
• several useful indicators like Bollinger Bands, moving averages, Relative Strength Index, Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD), Volume-Weighted Average Price (VWAP) and more

Robinhood also has no fees upon account opening and includes no minimum balance requirements. Robinhood has been one of the online stock brokers at the vanguard for eliminating the common barriers associated with investing in the stock market.

Consider signing up for a Robinhood account to see what you think. The company makes it worth your while by offering a free stock for signing up.

Related: Best Free Investing Apps

7. Best for Technical Indicators: MetaStock

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• Available: Sign up here

MetaStock is a longtime player in the technical analysis tools industry. Several versions of the software are available, depending on your trading needs. MetaStock offers options for day, swing, and EOD traders to trade stocks, options, commodities, futures, and more.

For frequent traders, MetaStock R/T uses real-time data so you can make informed decisions about what to buy and sell and when to make the most money possible. You also can customize solutions to fit your trading style and build and backtest trading strategies.

For traders who prefer to do their analysis after the markets close, there’s MetaStock D/C, which comes with a one-time price of $499. However, both products offer free trials, so you can test them before committing to a subscription or fee.

The software comes with over 150 indicators and interpretations that help you understand how to trade based on each indicator. Advanced users also can write their customized indicators. Plus, along with the ability to backtest trading strategies, you can also use the software to make predictions about future trading.

One drawback to MetaStock is that the software is currently only compatible with the Windows operating system.

 

8. Best for Advanced Traders: Trade Ideas

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• Available: Sign up here

Trade Ideas employs an artificial intelligence-powered assistant named Holly. This AI becomes your virtual research analyst who never sleeps and instead sifts through technicals, fundamentals, social media, earnings and more to pick stocks as real-time trade recommendations.

Holly stays busy, too. She runs over 1 million simulated trades each night and morning before the stock market opens with more than 70 proprietary algorithms to find you the highest probability, risk-appropriate opportunities to invest in stocks.

Trade Ideas doesn’t stop there, though. You can use these trade ideas proposed in real-time through a live simulated trading room. The simulation allows you to demo the stock service’s ideas without risking your own money.

The powerful service allows you to access real-time streaming trading ideas overlaid with technical analysis on simultaneous stock charts.

The pairing can help you learn how to trade into risk-reward balanced trades. You can invest and learn at the same time.

Where Trade Ideas Excels

Where Trade Ideas excels is not only giving you the data and ideas you haven’t seen elsewhere but also how to manage your money. The rules-based virtual trading room on every chart plays for both long-term investors and active traders.

Trade Ideas’ software adjusts levels and the trading plan to match as the stock market evolves. The best part? You can learn how to do all of this without risking your principal through a real-time simulated trading environment.

After you’ve grown comfortable with the service, you can choose to go live with the trade ideas and start investing real money by connecting directly through a brokerage like Interactive Brokers, TD Ameritrade and E-Trade.

How Does Trade Ideas Find Stock Picks?

Trade Ideas’ technology uses different stock scans each week to find unusual trade activity.

For example, they may detect a high short interest % in a stock or industry, which often leads to short squeezes, such as what happened with GameStop.

Real people curate scan results before any recommendations come available through the service.

You’ll also learn how the service picked the stock trade, why they believe it will perform well and how to find similar trades on your own.

The service carries a hefty price tag, with plans for the Standard subscription starting at $999 per year. For the whole Holly experience, you’ll need to upgrade to their $1,999 Premium plan.

Though, for these prices, you get access to what is likely the best day trading stock service and charting app on the market. (It even pairs directly with some of the best day trading platforms available.)

If you’ve got a lot of capital you plan to place at risk, this investment is a no-brainer.

Consider starting your Trade Ideas subscription with no contract involved. Cancel anytime.

Related: 9 Best Portfolio Analysis Tools [Portfolio Analyzer Options]

9. Best App for Market Data: Seeking Alpha

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• Available: Sign up here

Seeking Alpha Premium caters to the needs of intermediate and advanced investors looking for an affordable, all-inclusive, one-stop shop for their investing needs.

Seeking Alpha Premium acts as an all-in-one investing research and recommendation service that offers insightful analysis of financial news, stocks, and more—all designed to help you make better investing decisions.

Whether you’re looking to invest on the go or dedicate time for more in-depth, detailed research and analysis, Seeking Alpha provides features that meet your needs, including advanced charting and portfolio tracking.

No other site provides what Seeking Alpha does, providing unlimited access to everything from:

• Earnings call transcripts
• Seeking Alpha Author Ratings and Author Performance metrics
• Ten years’ worth of financial statements
• Ability to compare stocks side-by-side with peers
• Access to dividend and earnings forecasts and much, much more.

What to Expect from Seeking Alpha’s Paid Plans

Seeking Alpha has over 16,000 active contributors sharing well-written stock analysis. In-house editors vet these pieces before being read and discussed by millions of people. Reading different opinions about the same stock helps investors develop their own informed opinions on the likelihood a stock will rise or fall. I recommend this approach when learning how to research stocks.

In addition to numerous deep-dive research articles, Seeking Alpha’s website has fundamental analysis tools, a Trending Newsfeed, crowdsourced debates, and market data. Users can create their portfolios to follow favorite stocks, see how choices perform and receive email alerts or push notifications. You also have access to podcasts and video content.

While the website has a significant amount of information, some features remain reserved for the Premium Plan and Pro Plan members.

Seeking Alpha Premium

With a Seeking Alpha Premium subscription, you will enjoy unparalleled access with an ad-lite interface across your user experience. Seeking Alpha Premium can help you manage your portfolio with a large investing community so you can better understand the financial world. Access more premium content, author ratings and performance to get ideas for your next investment.

Premium plan members can see the ratings of authors whose articles they read. It’s helpful to know if you’re reading a piece written by someone with a top record or a poor track record in the stock market.

“Expert” analyses are reserved for Premium members as well. This plan includes a stock screener letting you filter by average analyst rating and gain access to listen to conference calls and other presentations.

Seeking Alpha Pro

A Seeking Alpha Pro subscription comes with all the features of Seeking Alpha Premium but also comes with extra features like:

• The Top Ideas recommendation list
• Exclusive newsletter subscriptions and interviews
• VIP Editorial Concierge
• Seeking Alpha Pro screener for investing ideas
• No ads—providing you with fewer interruptions to your reading experience.

The Pro Plan targets professional investors.

Why Subscribe to Seeking Alpha?

In short, Seeking Alpha distills down the relevant financial information for you, so you don’t have to—making it easy for anyone interested in self-directed investments to have a chance at outperforming the stock market. Now’s your chance with Seeking Alpha’s Paid Plans.

Consider starting a free trial to take advantage of SA’s Premium services and see if they make sense for your needs, or check out our Seeking Alpha review to learn more.

Related: Best Seeking Alpha Alternatives [Competitors’ Sites to Consider]

10. Best for Easy-to-Use Technical Analysis: FinViz

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• Available: Sign up here

Finviz is a stock analysis software that provides a free version and one with paid premium features.

With the stock analysis tool’s premium features, you can join thousands of traders who make more informed decisions. These features include access to real-time data and quotes, advanced visualizations, trend lines, backtesting, and much more.

Finviz has an intuitive interface that makes it easy to find what you’re looking for in seconds. For premium users of the FinViz*Elite service, the platform also includes a variety of charting and tools possibilities, such as:

• intraday charts and overlays so you can perform deep technical analysis on stocks like never before
• stock indicators
• drawing tools
• fullscreen layouts
• performance comparison charts
• correlations
• technical studies backtesting

It also includes access to pre-market and after-market data in all stock features. Further, you can use the service’s enhanced Stock Screener to filter stocks, export the data, create advanced charts, customize the filters, and have a statistics view.

Consider signing up and starting a subscription. If you’re not satisfied, you can request a full refund within the first 30-days of subscribing. Also, by becoming a FinViz*Elite member, you can remove all ads from your platform.

Related: Best Online Stock Brokers for Beginners

11. Best Free App for Mobile Device [Intermediate]: Webull

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• Available: Sign up here

Webull is a commission-free stock trading app that focuses on traders who utilize technical analysis.
Webull offers commission-free trading the same as many online brokers and offers fundamental indicators for frequent traders or individuals looking to invest in stocks, bonds, and cryptocurrencies or participate in options trading.

The app is available on all mobile devices and provides valuable resources to inform your trading decision on whether to buy or sell a security.

One such example is a free 3-month trial of NASDAQ TotalView Level 2 Advance quotes, which provides real-time views into the depth-of-market in a security.

The TotalView Level 2 Advance quotes give a sense of how deep the market for a security is, the pending trade offers at various bids and asks, and whether the stock market momentum might shift in favor of higher or lower prices in the security.

After three months, users can subscribe to the service for a low monthly fee of $1.99/mo.

The service offers a desktop and smartphone app for placing your trades, whether that entails shorting stocks, trading options, buying and selling stocks and ETFs or tracking your stocks in the app.

Inside the mobile app, you can access news events with breaking news alerts, save free charts you create, practice trading with paper trading, and more with the powerful free charting tools.

This stock trading app for beginners and experts alike also offers free stocks for signing up if you make a nominal deposit.

Related: Best Investment Apps and Platforms

12. Best Free App for Mobile and Desktop Charting Tools: Moomoo

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• Available: Sign up here

Moomoo is a commission-free trading platform for stocks, ETFs, and options. Moomoo takes a different approach from platforms favoring simplicity and ease of use. The stock trading platform caters to new and advanced traders by offering an integrated platform rich with powerful tools to enhance your trading insights and abilities.

Moomoo enables easy research and tracking functions with its AI tools. Further, it provides free resources to train your market sensitivity and understanding, including comprehensive dimensions of market data like Depth-of-Market and real-time Level 2 Market Data, and 24/7 financial news handpicked by Moomoo’s editorial team. The trading platform provides these features to empower investors to make better investing decisions.

One Moomoo feature worth noting is mobile charting, which allows traders to take advantage of more than 60 investing indicators and 38 drawing tools. And any drawings or annotations you make are saved and synced with your profile so you can view them from either the app or your desktop.

If this feature set sounds intimidating to start with, the app also offers paper trading functionality with real-time data. This simulates the investment experience before committing any of your real money.

And for making a qualifying deposit, the app pays you to give it a spin by offering free stocks for signing up.

To conclude, if you want a professional-grade, technical analysis-enabling platform for research and trading, Moomoo would be a solid choice to consider.

Moomoo’s parent company is Nasdaq-listed Futu Holdings Ltd (FUTU). Their subsidiaries are licensed and regulated in the United States, Singapore, Australia, and Hong Kong.

Related: Best Investment Apps for Beginners

Related Questions on Stock Charting Tools

What is a Stock Chart?

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Stock charts are an integral tool for technical analysis and trading.

Charts provide a visual representation of the price action of stocks by plotting historical price data, which allows for easier identification of price patterns and trends.

Through technical analysis of stock charts, traders can help identify a stock’s trajectory and make informed trades.

What are Stock Chart Indicators?

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Stock chart indicators are mathematical calculations plotted as lines on a price chart.

These indicators help traders identify trends within the market that will help inform their trading decisions.

Popular Stock Chart Technical Indicators

Moving Averages

Moving averages are average calculations done on different subsets of the complete data set.

Moving averages help mitigate the impact of short-term fluctuations in stock prices so traders can better identify the trend of a stock or support and resistance levels.

Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD)

Moving average convergence divergence is one of the most popular technical indicators and can be used as a trend or momentum indicator.

Essentially, MACD calculates the difference between the 26-day and 12-day exponential moving averages.

On the chart, MACD appears as two lines that oscillate without boundaries, and the crossover of the lines gives trading signals.

The MACD is considered bullish when crossing above zero and bearish when crossing below zero.

Relative Strength Index (RSI)

The relative strength index is a momentum indicator that measures the magnitude of a price change.

This measurement helps evaluate whether the price change reflected oversold or overbought conditions. RSI is shown as an oscillator with a reading from 0 to 100.

Values of 70 or above indicate overbought conditions, and 30 or below indicate oversold conditions.

Bollinger Bands

Bollinger bands display the upper and lower ranges of stock prices.

They are envelopes plotted one standard deviation above and below the moving average of the price and help determine whether prices are high or low.

You can use these technical indicators to understand how a stock might trade going forward by comparing the stock price to performance on a relative basis.

Using the pair of bands isn’t meant to serve as the only tool used. In fact, the pair of bands are used to confirm signals (buy signals, sell signals) given by other advanced and basic indicators.

Trading Volume

Trading volume is the number of shares traded during a specific period used by traders to confirm a particular security trend.

Candlestick Charts

Candlestick charts are used to describe price movements. They are similar to box and whisker plots in that four data points for the day are represented.

The open and close prices are the candle body, while the lowest and highest prices are represented by the “wicks” that extend from either side of the body.

A candlestick chart provides information about trading patterns over short periods.