When you're new to investing, it is best to start with index funds or mutual funds. This will keep your portfolio diversified and reduce risk. But if you want to move on to invest in individual stocks, a good first step is reading and understanding stock charts.

Investing in individual stocks

A stock chart is a graph that shows the stock price over a specific period. Advanced stock charts will show additional data. The best website for basic stock information is Google Finance or Yahoo! Finance. The series of letters after the company's name is the ticker symbol and identifies the company on the stock exchange. For example, AAPL is Apple's ticker symbol. Then click the button to expand the chart to full screen.

The stock chart

The Robinhood app can make trading easier by analyzing stocks using the quick-to-open charts. Then, filter the chart from one day to five years' worth of performance. Trades cost $0 with Robinhood if you wish to invest independently.

Buy stock on your own with Robinhood

A stock chart shows historic prices. It is useful when you can decipher what it's showing so you can make more accurate predictions. <ol><li>Identify the trend line</li><li>Look for lines of support and resistance</li><li>Know when dividends and stock splits occur</li><li>Understand historic trading volumes.</li></ol>

Learning to read a stock chart

It is essential to understand that stocks will take massive dives and make huge climbs. But it is best not to react to these huge drops or gains. News will come and go, but pay attention to it when news coincides with a drastic change in the trend line. For example, in 2011, Steve Jobs resigned, and Apple noticed that their profit margins were decreasing despite a growing smartphone market. This and other factors caused the stock price to fall. But new CEO Tim Cook turned that around, as noted on the trend line. While most companies will bounce back, not all can.

Identify the trend line

Lines of support and resistance are levels at which the stock stays within over a certain period. <ul><li>A level of support is a price that a stock is unlikely to drop below.</li><li>A level of resistance is one that it's unlikely to climb above.</li></ul> The lines are subjective. Everyone will draw these lines differently, depending on how long they plan to hold the stock. Someone planning to hold stock for a long time won't care as much about the ups and downs, but a short-term investor may draw more lines to analyse trends during a shorter period.

Look for lines of support and resistance

You can see at the bottom of the chart when a company issued a dividend and if there was a stock split. <ul><li>A dividend is when the company decides to give a portion of its earnings back to its shareholders. (Not all do. Some prefer to focus on growth). If you own the stock, you'll get some of the profit.</li><li>A stock split is when more shares of stock are issued to the public. This is done to attract smaller investors or if the price isn't in line with competitors. For example, Apple did a 7:1 stock split, meaning you now have seven for every share you owned before the split.</li></ul>

Know when dividends and stock splits occur

At the bottom of the chart are small, vertical lines. This is a trend of the volumes at which the stock is traded. You should not only focus on volumes when you buy a stock. While there's not always a correlation, sometimes volumes can increase to shift the stock's price quickly. For example:<ul><li>In line A, there was a high volume of trading activity and a drop in the stock price. It could have been news that caused people to panic.</li><li>In line B, there is a slight uptick in trading volume that corresponds to an upward stock price trend. </li></ul>

Understand historic trading volumes

When you are practised at reading a stock chart, you might be looking for more powerful tools, such as: <ul><li>E*trade takes advantage of robust stock charts and trading tools. However, their pricing isn't the best.</li><li>Robinhood. This app gives just enough information to make informed decisions.</li><li>TD Ameritrade. You pay nothing for access to any of TD Ameritrade's trading platforms, streaming news, and expert research.</li><li>Public makes stock trading into a social event. You have access to a community of investors. Public also gives you access to stocks for as little as $5 and offer fractional shares.</li></ul>

Stock trading tools

<figure><img width="364" height="205" src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/56_how-to-read-a-stock-chart-648x364-c-default.jpg" alt="how-to-read-a-stock-chart" title="how-to-read-a-stock-chart"></figure><div dir="ltr">
<h2 dir="ltr">What exactly is a stock chart, and how does it help you analyze stocks?</h2>
</div>Simply put, a stock chart is a graph that shows you the price of a stock over a specific period of time – for example, five years. More advanced stock charts will show additional data, and by understanding the basics you can pull out a lot of information about a stock’s historic, current, and expected performance.One of the best websites to look at basic stock information is Google Finance. Yahoo! Finance is a close second.Now let’s take a look at a typical stock chart. Let’s use Apple for this article.If you don’t already know, the series of letters after the name of the company is the ticker symbol. It identifies the company on the stock exchange.In this case, I’ll search for AAPL, which is Apple’s ticker symbol. This is what we get:<img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/images/2016/10/how-to-read-a-stock-chart.png" alt="how to read a stock chart" width="755" height="331">Next, click the button to expand the chart to full screen and it’ll look like this:<img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/images/2016/10/apple-stock-chart.png" alt="apple stock chart" width="755" height="358">I’ve also taken the liberty of filtering only to the last 10 years, which you can easily do by clicking the corresponding button (which I’ve highlighted for you).So here we’re looking at the last 10 years of Apple’s stock. I bet you wish you would have gotten in in late 2008!Now let’s dive into the different pieces and parts of the stock chart so you can begin to read one like a pro.<h3>You can easily buy stock on your own with Robinhood</h3>The <a href="https://www.moneyunder30.com/links/robinhood" rel="nofollow sponsored" data-track="" dir="ltr">Robinhood</a> app can make trading easier for investors by analyzing stocks through the use of quick-to-open charts. You can quickly filter the chart from one day all the way to five years’ worth of performance and tap your finger anywhere on the chart and get historical pricing. It’s pretty sweet, actually.Also, Robinhood has a really nice news stream. It’s kind of like a Facebook stream, only for stock news and great for staying up-to-date on market trends.If you’re looking to invest on your own, trades cost $0 with Robinhood.<div dir="ltr">
Advertiser Disclosure – This advertisement contains information and materials provided by Robinhood Financial LLC and its affiliates (“Robinhood”) and MoneyUnder30, a third party not affiliated with Robinhood. All investments involve risk and the past performance of a security, or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. Securities offered through Robinhood Financial LLC and Robinhood Securities LLC, which are members of FINRA and SIPC. MoneyUnder30 is not a member of FINRA or SIPC.”
<h2 dir="ltr">Important things to know when learning how to read a stock chart</h2>
</div>Now that you have a better idea of what a stock chart is, it’s time to learn how to actually read one. In its most basic form, a stock chart is exactly what I said above – a chart with historic prices of a particular stock.But where it becomes even more valuable is when you know how to read that information and decipher what it’s showing so you can make more accurate predictions about how the stock will perform in the future.&nbsp;So below, I’ll talk about four key data points you need to understand in order to fully leverage the power of a stock chart. Let’s jump in.<h3>1. Identify the trend line</h3><img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/images/2016/10/what-is-a-trend-line.png" alt="what is a trend line?" width="755" height="358">This is that blue line you see every time you hear about a stock – it’s either going up or down right? While the trend line seems like common sense, there are a few things I want to call out so you can understand it in a little more detail.First, know that stocks will take huge dives and also make huge climbs.&nbsp;Don’t react to large drops or huge gains in a positive or negative way. You should be using this piece of the stock chart merely to see what’s going on.In fact, the trend line should lead you to dig further. For instance, Apple as a company really took off from 2009 to 2012.But what happened from 2012 to 2013? The stock began to sink – at one time, shares were down more than 4o%!This is where your trend line comes in handy. News comes and goes, but when news coincides with a dramatic shift in the trend line, it’s something to pay attention to.If you saw something like this happen, I’d urge you to find out what’s going on with the company. Most strong companies can rebound from hits like this, but not all can.For those that don’t know, right around this time Apple experienced a few major shifts:First, it’s longtime CEO, Steve Jobs, resigned (2011). Also, around 2012, Apple noted that their profit margins were significantly decreasing, despite a growing smartphone market. Finally, they were trying to expand the smartphone into developing countries, where they were just too expensive to compete.These factors, combined with plenty of other variables, contributed to the stock price falling.But new CEO Tim Cook made some strategic moves with the company to turn it around, and the rest of the trend line shows that.The lesson here is to use your trend line as a first-glance, high-level indicator of something to look into.<h3>2. Look for lines of support and resistance</h3>The next thing you’ll want to look at is the lines of resistance and support.These are levels at which the stock stays within, over a given period of time. A level of support is a price that a stock is unlikely to drop below, while a level of resistance is one that it’s unlikely to go above.That is until some major change occurs, such as a reduced profit margin.Think of these lines as bumpers at a bowling alley. When you’re bowling, the ball bounces back and forth between these inflated barriers.A stock’s price does the same thing within these lines of support and resistance.The goal here is to know when to buy and when to sell. Let’s take a look at Apple’s stock chart again to see an example:<img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/images/2016/10/line-of-support-line-of-resistance.png" alt="line of support line of resistance" width="1" height="1">These are subjective and interpreted differently by everyone, but the process is important. First know that everyone will draw lines of resistance and support differently, depending on their investment horizon (how long they plan to hold the stock).So if you plan on holding it for a long time, you may not draw as many lines of support and resistance, because you don’t care as much about the ups and downs. But if you’re a short-term investor, you may draw more to analyze trends during a shorter period.Let me break down the image above with each of the trend lines:<UL><LI>Line A is the very first line of support shown. Based on trends prior to this, you can feel comfortable that the stock price won’t go below this point.</LI><LI>Line B is my first line of resistance. You can see that the stock has peaked at that point for now and you shouldn’t expect it to go higher.</LI><LI>As you can see with Line C, the stock has bottomed out again, thus creating a new line of support.</LI><LI>Line D shows the stock price has increased significantly and I’m comfortable establishing this as a new line of resistance.</LI><LI>You can see the trend continue with Lines E, F, G, and H,&nbsp;bringing new lines of support and resistance as time goes on.</LI></UL>If it seems complex, don’t fret. It is. And a lot of it is guesswork.Knowing the lines of resistance can help you decide when to buy or sell a stock. Remember, though, that it’s subjective and it won’t give you a clear-cut road map on exactly what to do. You’ll have to use some of your own analysis and judgment.<h3>3. Know when dividends and stock splits occur</h3>At the bottom of the chart, you’ll see if and when the company issued a dividend, as well as if there was ever a stock split:<img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/images/2016/10/what-is-a-stock-split.png" alt="what is a stock split?" width="1" height="1">A dividend is when the company (the board of directors) decides to give a portion of its earnings back to its shareholders. &nbsp;If you own the stock, you get a small chunk of the profit.Some companies issue dividends, some don’t. Just because a company does or doesn’t issue a dividend doesn’t mean it’s not worth investing in. There are plenty of other factors to consider.Some companies just prefer to focus on growth, so they’ll reinvest their earnings as opposed to giving them back to the shareholders. Other companies (like Apple) can pay dividends without sacrificing growth.As you can see by the image, Apple started issuing quarterly dividends to its shareholders midway through 2012.You can also see that there was a stock split in 2014. A stock split is a strategic move done by the company’s board of directors to issue more shares of stock to the public.In this case, Apple did a seven&nbsp;to one&nbsp;stock split (noted as 7:1), which means that for every share of AAPL you owned prior to the split, you’d now have seven. So if you owned 100 shares of APPL prior to the split, you’d now have 700.The value of the company doesn’t change, but the share price might. Companies will often do this if the price isn’t in line with competitors or to attract smaller investors (if the share price decreases).You can see the uptick in the trend line after the split occurred, too. Many times when a stock split happens, more people invest (since the share price is often lower) which increases demand and, in many cases, the overall share price.<h3>4. Understand historic trading volumes</h3>At the very bottom of the chart, you can see many small, vertical lines. This is a trend of the volumes at which the stock is traded.Volumes are good to know, but shouldn’t be your only determining factor when buying a stock. Usually, trading volumes increase when there is major news (good or bad) about the company.When volumes are increasing, it can also shift the price of the stock quickly. Let’s look at an example:<img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/images/2016/10/stock-trading-volumes.png" alt="stock trading volumes" width="1" height="1">In Line A, you can see there was a high volume of trading activity that corresponded with a drop in the stock price. There may have been news that day that caused people to panic (aside from the entire economy crashing that year).In Line B, you can see a slight uptick in trading volume that corresponds with an upward trend in the stock price.Don’t always assume there will be a correlation between stock price and trading volume, but it’s good to know what the volumes have been in the past and what they are currently before making a decision.With high volumes comes greater ease when buying or selling. If a lot of people are trading the stock that day, you should be able to buy or sell it quickly.<div dir="ltr">
<h2 dir="ltr">Where you can find some of the best stock trading tools</h2>
</div>Once you’re comfortable reading a stock chart and you feel like you have the basics down, you might be looking for a more powerful tool. Here are a couple of great options.<h3>E*TRADE</h3><img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/ETrade-Logo_2022_210x100.png" alt="" width="210" height="210"><a href="https://www.moneyunder30.com/links/etrade" rel="nofollow sponsored" data-track="" dir="ltr">E*TRADE</a> is incredibly powerful and&nbsp;hits the mark when you want to take advantage of robust stock charts and trading tools. Their tools are lightyears above the rest when it comes to trading.No, their pricing isn’t the best and their platform isn’t as *sexy* as some others, but when you really want to get into technical analysis, E*TRADE is the way to go.&nbsp;<h3>Robinhood</h3><img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Robinhood-210-x-100-updated-June-2020.jpg" alt="Investing For Beginners: How To Read A Stock Chart - Robinhood" width="210" height="210">Where E*TRADE gives you all the bells and whistles, some people may not need all of that. <a href="https://www.moneyunder30.com/links/robinhood" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored" data-track="" dir="ltr">Robinhood</a>’s app does an excellent job of giving you just enough information to start to make more informed decisions.No, you can’t get as granular as I did above using the app, but you may not need to. Or, maybe you’ve already done your research on a Google Finance stock chart and just want to check in on how the stock is performing. Either way, Robinhood is an excellent platform with great trading tools.<div dir="ltr">
Advertiser Disclosure – This advertisement contains information and materials provided by Robinhood Financial LLC and its affiliates (“Robinhood”) and MoneyUnder30, a third party not affiliated with Robinhood. All investments involve risk and the past performance of a security, or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. Securities offered through Robinhood Financial LLC and Robinhood Securities LLC, which are members of FINRA and SIPC. MoneyUnder30 is not a member of FINRA or SIPC.”
</div><h3>TD Ameritrade</h3><img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/TD-Ameritrade-Logo.jpg" alt="Investing For Beginners: How To Read A Stock Chart - TD Ameritrade" width="210" height="210">No matter what level investor you are, <a href="https://www.moneyunder30.com/links/td-ameritrade" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored" data-track="" dir="ltr">TD Ameritrade</a> can work for you.&nbsp;You’ll pay nothing for access to any of TD Ameritrade‘s trading platforms, streaming news, and expert research.Plus, you’ll have access to TD Ameritrade’s&nbsp;thinkorswim platform, which is a professional-level trading platform that gives you tools to perform stock analysis and watch for potential risks and rewards.<h3>Public</h3><img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Public-brand-210x100.jpg" alt="Investing For Beginners: How To Read A Stock Chart - Public" width="210" height="210"><a href="https://www.moneyunder30.com/links/public-investment-app" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored" data-track="" dir="ltr">Public</a> makes stock trading a social event – literally. When you use Public, you’ll have access to a community of investors – both long-time, experienced investors and beginner investors. This allows you to chat with others and get a sense of which investing strategy may work best for you.Besides this feature, Public also gives you access to stocks for as little as $5. They offer fractional shares, so even if you want to invest in a high-end company like Amazon, you don’t have to spend thousands.<div dir="ltr">
<h2 dir="ltr">Summary</h2>
</div>That’s the basics&nbsp;of how to read a stock chart. Once you’ve mastered these techniques, you should be able to analyze a stock’s historic activity at a high level.Remember that past performance doesn’t correlate to future indications on price. Meaning that just because Apple hit $130 per share recently doesn’t mean it will again. There’s also nothing to say it won’t double in price. You just can’t know.<UL><LI> Recommended<img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/m1finance_120x55.png" title="m1finance_120x55" alt="M1 Finance 120" width="120" height="120">M1 Finance gives you the benefits of a robo-advisor with the control of a traditional brokerage. M1 charges no commissions or management fees, and their minimum starting balance is just $100.</LI><LI> $500 Minimum<img src="https://www.moneyunder30.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/wealthfront_120x55.png" title="wealthfront_120x55" alt="wealthfront_120" width="120" height="120">Wealthfront requires a $500 minimum investment and charges a very competitive fee of 0.25% per year on portfolios over $10,000.</LI></UL>

Stock picking is hard, and understanding stock charts is the first step toward success. Here's our beginner's guide on how to read a stock chart.

Stashed ideas

What exactly is a stock chart, and how does it help you analyze stocks?

Simply put, a stock chart is a graph that shows you the price of a stock over a specific period of time – for example, five years. More advanced stock charts will show additional data, and by understanding the basics you can pull out a lot of information about a stock’s historic, current, and expected performance.

One of the best websites to look at basic stock information is Google Finance. Yahoo! Finance is a close second.

Now let’s take a look at a typical stock chart. Let’s use Apple for this article.

If you don’t already know, the series of letters after the name of the company is the ticker symbol. It identifies the company on the stock exchange.

In this case, I’ll search for AAPL, which is Apple’s ticker symbol. This is what we get:

Next, click the button to expand the chart to full screen and it’ll look like this:

I’ve also taken the liberty of filtering only to the last 10 years, which you can easily do by clicking the corresponding button (which I’ve highlighted for you).

So here we’re looking at the last 10 years of Apple’s stock. I bet you wish you would have gotten in in late 2008!

Now let’s dive into the different pieces and parts of the stock chart so you can begin to read one like a pro.

You can easily buy stock on your own with Robinhood

The <a href="https://www.moneyunder30.com/links/robinhood">Robinhood </a> app can make trading easier for investors by analyzing stocks through the use of quick-to-open charts. You can quickly filter the chart from one day all the way to five years’ worth of performance and tap your finger anywhere on the chart and get historical pricing. It’s pretty sweet, actually.

Also, Robinhood has a really nice news stream. It’s kind of like a Facebook stream, only for stock news and great for staying up-to-date on market trends.

If you’re looking to invest on your own, trades cost $0 with Robinhood.

Important things to know when learning how to read a stock chart

Now that you have a better idea of what a stock chart is, it’s time to learn how to actually read one. In its most basic form, a stock chart is exactly what I said above – a chart with historic prices of a particular stock.

But where it becomes even more valuable is when you know how to read that information and decipher what it’s showing so you can make more accurate predictions about how the stock will perform in the future.

So below, I’ll talk about four key data points you need to understand in order to fully leverage the power of a stock chart. Let’s jump in.

This is that blue line you see every time you hear about a stock – it’s either going up or down right? While the trend line seems like common sense, there are a few things I want to call out so you can understand it in a little more detail.

First, know that stocks will take huge dives and also make huge climbs. Don’t react to large drops or huge gains in a positive or negative way. You should be using this piece of the stock chart merely to see what’s going on.

In fact, the trend line should lead you to dig further. For instance, Apple as a company really took off from 2009 to 2012.

But what happened from 2012 to 2013? The stock began to sink – at one time, shares were down more than 4o%!

This is where your trend line comes in handy. News comes and goes, but when news coincides with a dramatic shift in the trend line, it’s something to pay attention to.

If you saw something like this happen, I’d urge you to find out what’s going on with the company. Most strong companies can rebound from hits like this, but not all can.

For those that don’t know, right around this time Apple experienced a few major shifts:

First, it’s longtime CEO, Steve Jobs, resigned (2011). Also, around 2012, Apple noted that their profit margins were significantly decreasing, despite a growing smartphone market. Finally, they were trying to expand the smartphone into developing countries, where they were just too expensive to compete.

These factors, combined with plenty of other variables, contributed to the stock price falling.

But new CEO Tim Cook made some strategic moves with the company to turn it around, and the rest of the trend line shows that.

The lesson here is to use your trend line as a first-glance, high-level indicator of something to look into.

2. Look for lines of support and resistance

The next thing you’ll want to look at is the lines of resistance and support.

These are levels at which the stock stays within, over a given period of time. A level of support is a price that a stock is unlikely to drop below, while a level of resistance is one that it’s unlikely to go above.

That is until some major change occurs, such as a reduced profit margin.

Think of these lines as bumpers at a bowling alley. When you’re bowling, the ball bounces back and forth between these inflated barriers.

A stock’s price does the same thing within these lines of support and resistance.

The goal here is to know when to buy and when to sell. Let’s take a look at Apple’s stock chart again to see an example:

These are subjective and interpreted differently by everyone, but the process is important. First know that everyone will draw lines of resistance and support differently, depending on their investment horizon (how long they plan to hold the stock).

So if you plan on holding it for a long time, you may not draw as many lines of support and resistance, because you don’t care as much about the ups and downs. But if you’re a short-term investor, you may draw more to analyze trends during a shorter period.

Let me break down the image above with each of the trend lines:

<ul><li>Line A is the very first line of support shown. Based on trends prior to this, you can feel comfortable that the stock price won’t go below this point. </li><li>Line B is my first line of resistance. You can see that the stock has peaked at that point for now and you shouldn’t expect it to go higher. </li><li>As you can see with Line C, the stock has bottomed out again, thus creating a new line of support. </li><li>Line D shows the stock price has increased significantly and I’m comfortable establishing this as a new line of resistance. </li><li>You can see the trend continue with Lines E, F, G, and H, bringing new lines of support and resistance as time goes on. </li> </ul>

If it seems complex, don’t fret. It is. And a lot of it is guesswork.

Knowing the lines of resistance can help you decide when to buy or sell a stock. Remember, though, that it’s subjective and it won’t give you a clear-cut road map on exactly what to do. You’ll have to use some of your own analysis and judgment.

3. Know when dividends and stock splits occur

At the bottom of the chart, you’ll see if and when the company issued a dividend, as well as if there was ever a stock split:

A dividend is when the company (the board of directors) decides to give a portion of its earnings back to its shareholders.  If you own the stock, you get a small chunk of the profit.

Some companies issue dividends, some don’t. Just because a company does or doesn’t issue a dividend doesn’t mean it’s not worth investing in. There are plenty of other factors to consider.

Some companies just prefer to focus on growth, so they’ll reinvest their earnings as opposed to giving them back to the shareholders. Other companies (like Apple) can pay dividends without sacrificing growth.

As you can see by the image, Apple started issuing quarterly dividends to its shareholders midway through 2012.

You can also see that there was a stock split in 2014. A stock split is a strategic move done by the company’s board of directors to issue more shares of stock to the public.

In this case, Apple did a seven to one stock split (noted as 7:1), which means that for every share of AAPL you owned prior to the split, you’d now have seven. So if you owned 100 shares of APPL prior to the split, you’d now have 700.

The value of the company doesn’t change, but the share price might. Companies will often do this if the price isn’t in line with competitors or to attract smaller investors (if the share price decreases).

You can see the uptick in the trend line after the split occurred, too. Many times when a stock split happens, more people invest (since the share price is often lower) which increases demand and, in many cases, the overall share price.

At the very bottom of the chart, you can see many small, vertical lines. This is a trend of the volumes at which the stock is traded.

Volumes are good to know, but shouldn’t be your only determining factor when buying a stock. Usually, trading volumes increase when there is major news (good or bad) about the company.

When volumes are increasing, it can also shift the price of the stock quickly. Let’s look at an example:

In Line A, you can see there was a high volume of trading activity that corresponded with a drop in the stock price. There may have been news that day that caused people to panic (aside from the entire economy crashing that year).

In Line B, you can see a slight uptick in trading volume that corresponds with an upward trend in the stock price.

Don’t always assume there will be a correlation between stock price and trading volume, but it’s good to know what the volumes have been in the past and what they are currently before making a decision.

With high volumes comes greater ease when buying or selling. If a lot of people are trading the stock that day, you should be able to buy or sell it quickly.

Where you can find some of the best stock trading tools

Once you’re comfortable reading a stock chart and you feel like you have the basics down, you might be looking for a more powerful tool. Here are a couple of great options.

<a href="https://www.moneyunder30.com/links/etrade">E*TRADE </a> is incredibly powerful and  hits the mark when you want to take advantage of robust stock charts and trading tools. Their tools are lightyears above the rest when it comes to trading.

No, their pricing isn’t the best and their platform isn’t as *sexy* as some others, but when you really want to get into technical analysis, E*TRADE is the way to go.

Where E*TRADE gives you all the bells and whistles, some people may not need all of that. <a href="https://www.moneyunder30.com/links/robinhood">Robinhood </a>’s app does an excellent job of giving you just enough information to start to make more informed decisions.

No, you can’t get as granular as I did above using the app, but you may not need to. Or, maybe you’ve already done your research on a Google Finance stock chart and just want to check in on how the stock is performing. Either way, Robinhood is an excellent platform with great trading tools.

No matter what level investor you are, <a href="https://www.moneyunder30.com/links/td-ameritrade">TD Ameritrade </a> can work for you. You’ll pay nothing for access to any of TD Ameritrade ‘s trading platforms, streaming news, and expert research.

Plus, you’ll have access to TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim platform, which is a professional-level trading platform that gives you tools to perform stock analysis and watch for potential risks and rewards.

<a href="https://www.moneyunder30.com/links/public-investment-app">Public </a> makes stock trading a social event – literally. When you use Public, you’ll have access to a community of investors – both long-time, experienced investors and beginner investors. This allows you to chat with others and get a sense of which investing strategy may work best for you.

Besides this feature, Public also gives you access to stocks for as little as $5. They offer fractional shares, so even if you want to invest in a high-end company like Amazon, you don’t have to spend thousands.

That’s the basics of how to read a stock chart. Once you’ve mastered these techniques, you should be able to analyze a stock’s historic activity at a high level.

Remember that past performance doesn’t correlate to future indications on price. Meaning that just because Apple hit $130 per share recently doesn’t mean it will again. There’s also nothing to say it won’t double in price. You just can’t know.

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Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Investing 101: How To Read A Stock Chart For Beginners

Investing in individual stocks

The stock chart

Buy stock on your own with Robinhood

Learning to read a stock chart

Identify the trend line

Look for lines of support and resistance

Know when dividends and stock splits occur

Understand historic trading volumes

Stock trading tools

IDEAS ABOUT

MORE LIKE THIS

Investing for beginners

Understanding a Candlestick Chart

A Beginner's Guide to the Stock Market

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Investing 101: How To Read A Stock Chart For Beginners

Investing in individual stocks

The stock chart

Buy stock on your own with Robinhood

Learning to read a stock chart

Identify the trend line

Look for lines of support and resistance

Know when dividends and stock splits occur

Understand historic trading volumes

Stock trading tools

IDEAS ABOUT

MORE LIKE THIS

Investing for beginners

Understanding a Candlestick Chart

A Beginner's Guide to the Stock Market

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career