Chart Types

Direct Answer

A chart type is a set of rules for turning the same trade data into marks on a screen, and every one of them discards something. Time-based charts hold the x-axis constant and let activity vary; price- and activity-based charts do the reverse. Changing chart type does not change the market, it changes what you can see of it, and what a given type removes is usually the reason to use it.

Does changing chart type change the market?

No, it changes what you can see of it. A Renko chart makes a trend obvious by deleting the sideways periods, which is useful right up until you need to know how long the move took or how much it retraced. Every chart type is a trade of one kind of visibility for another.

Every guide in this section

10 guides in this section.

All guides

• Drawdown Chart: How to Read It

  A drawdown chart plots percentage decline from an asset or portfolio's running peak over time, showing the width and depth of underwater periods at a glance.

• Hollow Candlestick Chart Explained

  A hollow candlestick chart uses an unfilled body for a higher close and a filled body for a lower close, sometimes adding color as a second signal.

• Kagi Chart Explained

  A Kagi chart is a time-independent chart that draws thick or thin lines based on price reversals of a set amount, filtering out noise to highlight trend shifts.

• Line, Area & Baseline Charts Explained

  Line, area, and baseline charts plot only closing prices to filter out intrabar noise, how each is built, how to read them, and when traders use them.

• Market Profile / TPO Chart Explained

  How Market Profile (TPO) charts build a session's time-at-price distribution, and how Value Area and Point of Control are read from the resulting shape.

• OHLC Bar Chart Explained: How to Read It

  How an OHLC bar chart plots open, high, low, and close with tick marks instead of a candlestick body, and how it compares to reading a candlestick chart.

• Tick Chart Explained

  A tick chart plots a new bar after a fixed number of trades occur, not after a fixed time.

• Relative Performance & Ratio Charts

  Relative performance, indexed-to-100, ratio, and percent-change charts compare assets with different prices on one scale, how each is built and read.

• Renko Chart: Definition & How It Works

  A Renko chart plots fixed-size price bricks that ignore time, filtering out noise to highlight trend direction.

• Volume-Weighted Charts Explained

  Volume-weighted charts fold traded volume directly into price bars, volume bars, volume-shaded candles, and Equivolume width.