How to Read Stock Charts: Quick-Start Guide

Stock market graphs don’t have to be a mystery. Here’s how to read stock charts for any company.

Written by

Anna-Louise Jackson

Expertise

• Stock market
• Investment management
• Exchange-traded funds

Anna-Louise is a former investing and retirement writer for NerdWallet. She has been reporting on stocks and the economy for more than a decade. Her writing has appeared in Bloomberg, Fast Company, Crain's Chicago Business and USA Today.

Co-written by

Chris Davis

Expertise

• Brokerage accounts
• stock market
• cryptocurrency

Chris Davis is a Managing Editor on the Investing team. He has passed the Series 65 (Uniform Investment Adviser Law Exam) and covered the stock market, investing strategies, investment accounts and cryptocurrency. His work has appeared in The Associated Press, The Washington Post, MSN, Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, Newsday and TheStreet.

Co-written by

Sam Taube

Expertise

• Stocks
• ETFs
• economic news

Sam Taube writes about investing for NerdWallet. He has covered investing and financial news since earning his economics degree from the University of Maryland in 2016. Sam has previously written for Investopedia, Benzinga, Seeking Alpha, Wealth Daily and Investment U, and has worked as an editor for Investment U, Wealth Daily and Haven Investment Letter. He is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Edited by

Arielle O'Shea

Expertise

• Retirement planning
• investment management
• investment accounts

Arielle O’Shea leads the investing, advisory and taxes content teams at NerdWallet. She has covered personal finance and investing for 20 years and has appeared on various prominent news outlets.

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Nerdy takeaways

• Learning how to read stock charts can be useful to figure out if a company is doing well.
• Google's stock charts show basic data such as open, close and intraday prices.
• Learning how to interpret earnings and dividend data — as well as how to recognize chart patterns like support and resistance — can help inform your trading decisions.

Stock chart components

One of the most convenient ways to learn about stock charts is through Google. Just search a company’s ticker, and you’ll see a simple chart that’s the equivalent of the shallow end of the pool during a swim lesson.
As an example, let’s look at Apple (AAPL).

This chart shows the stock price was $190.69 at the market close on July 14, 2023. Closing price refers to the last price a stock traded for during regular market hours — 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern Time. During regular trading hours, the price will likely fluctuate.

We can also see the stock price “closed” 15 cents higher than it did on the previous trading day (when the close price was $190.54), meaning the price rose by about .08%. The green line shows the various price changes throughout the day, representing price increases and decreases over time.

Basic stock chart terms to know

• Open, high, low and previous close. The open is the first price at which a stock trades during regular market hours, while high and low reflect the highest and lowest prices the stock reaches during those hours, respectively. Previous close is the closing price of the previous trading day.

• Market cap. Shown here as “Mkt cap,” market cap means market capitalization, which measures the size of a company based on the number of its shares on the stock market multiplied by its current share price. In Apple’s case, your eyes do not deceive you: That’s a market cap of $3 trillion — one of the largest in the world.

• PE ratio. This stands for price-to-earnings ratio, which some investors may use to decide if a stock is undervalued, overvalued or fairly valued.

• Dividend yield. Shown here as “Div yield,” dividend yield tells you how much an investor may receive annually in dividends, expressed as a percentage of the current share price.

• 52-wk high and low. 52-week high is the highest price the stock has traded for during the preceding 52 weeks, while the 52-week low is the lowest price the stock has traded for during the preceding 52 weeks.

More advanced stock chart terms

Bid and ask

The bid is the highest price an investor is willing to pay for a stock. The ask is the lowest price an investor is willing to sell a stock for. This difference is called the bid-ask spread.

Volume, average volume and day’s range

Volume represents the number of shares that have been traded so far that day, while average volume is the average daily volume for a specified period.

Beta

A stock's beta shows how volatile a stock’s price is compared with the stock market, indicating how risky the stock is.

EPS (TTM) and earnings date

EPS (TTM) stands for earnings per share for the last 12 months. The earnings date is the publicly displayed window of time for when the company will announce its latest quarterly earnings.

Ex-dividend date

To receive the company’s dividend for the next period, you have to become a shareholder before the ex-dividend date.

1-year target estimate

This is an estimate of what the stock’s price could be in one year.

Moving averages

A moving average is a stock's average price over a particular period of time, changing every day.

Support and resistance

Support is the lower-bound of a stock's price over a given period of time, while resistance is the upper-bound of a stock's price over that period.

Types of stock charts and how to read them

There are various ways to analyze data in an advanced chart. For example, moving average crossovers can indicate bullish or bearish signals.

The bottom line on how to read stock charts

Stock charts can help you make smarter trading decisions. Start by learning basic price terms like high, low, open, and close, then recognize basic patterns for better chart interpretation.