The free course

Zero to reading a stock chart, in 31 lessons.

Start at lesson one and read straight through. Every lesson is one idea, in plain English, with the same pictures the video uses. Nothing here is a tip and nothing here predicts anything.

01Trading vs Investing: The One Question That Tells Them ApartInvesting asks what the company is worth; trading asks what the next person will pay.
02What Is a Share? You Buy a Slice, Not a CompanyA share is one piece of a real company; the price on a chart is the price of one piece.
03Nasdaq vs NYSE: Not the Same PlaceA ticker is the address of one listing on one exchange, not the name of a company - and addresses get reused.
04What Is a Stock Index? The Nasdaq Didn't FallAn exchange is a place; an index is a list of companies turned into one number - and most listed companies are not on any list.
05How Stock Prices Are Set: Nobody DecidesA price is the last trade - the last time two people agreed - and it moves because more people wanted in than out at that second, not because anybody decided.
06What a Broker Does: You Can't Walk Into an ExchangeA broker carries your order to the exchange, where it is matched with a stranger's opposite order - every trade is one buy meeting one sell, and nobody buys from the company.
07How to Read a Stock Chart: It's Just DotsA chart is one dot for every price at every time - a record of trades in order, not a drawing with a meaning built in - and the first three things to read are the ticker, the date and the timeframe.
08What Is a Candlestick? Four Numbers. That's AllA candle is not a signal: it is the first, highest, lowest and last price inside one window of time, drawn as one shape, and the timeframe label decides how big that window is.
09How to Read a Candlestick: The Candle Is a FightEvery candle is the same tug of war: the body (open to close) says who won the window, and the wick is the part that was reached and not held - so nobody has to memorise candle shapes.
10Green Candle vs Red: Green Does NOT Mean It Went UpA candle's colour compares its close to its own open and to nothing else - a red candle can close above yesterday's close, and the colours are a setting on the chart, not a fact about the stock.
11Chart Timeframes: Same Stock, Two Opposite StoriesA timeframe is the size of the box the trades go in; change it and the picture changes, the trades underneath do not.
12Stock Market Hours: 9:30 to 4:00. This Is All of ItA US stock chart shows the New York session, nine thirty to four, six and a half hours, every weekday - and the day has a shape: busy at the open, quiet in the middle, busy into the close.
13Chart Timeframes: One Day, Three PicturesThe same six and a half hours in three box sizes give three true pictures - a morning, a shape, one candle in a row - and traders read the bigger one first, because the small chart decides what you think before you have any context.
14Open vs Previous Close: Every "+5%" Starts SomewhereEvery percentage on a stock is measured from yesterday's close, not from this morning's open - two different numbers, on two different days, and they are never in the same place.
15Stock Gaps Explained: Nobody Traded $11A gap is the space between yesterday's close and today's open - nothing traded in it, it is the shape of a night of decisions, and it says nothing about what the day will do.
16Premarket Trading: There Is Trading Before 9:30Premarket is real trading from four in the morning, New York time, with far fewer people in it - thin bars, holes where nothing traded - and an ordinary order placed before the bell waits for 9:30; only an order with a price written on it trades early.
17The Market Open: What the Chart Looked Like at 9:35At 9:30 every order that waited overnight lands at once, so the first minutes are the crowd discovering the price, not the price choosing a direction; box their high and low and call it the range.
18Time of Day in Trading: 9:40 Is Not 2:40The same-sized move at 9:40 and at 2:40 is not the same event: the time of a move tells you the size of the crowd that made it, and the size of the crowd is part of what the move means.
19What Is Volume in Stocks? The Row UnderneathVolume is the row under the chart: one bar per candle, the number of shares traded in that candle's window, every trade counted once. Its height is how many people showed up; its colour is only borrowed from the candle above.
20Volume vs Dollar Volume: 10M Shares Is Not 10M SharesShare volume counts pieces, not money; multiply shares by price and you get dollar volume, the actual money that changed hands - two real days with nearly the same share count moved $118 million and $921 million.
21Relative Volume: "A Lot of Volume" Is Not a Number"A lot of volume" is a comparison, not a number: measure today's shares against the stock's own twenty-day average and the multiple is the number - a real day at 4.9 times its normal, and a much bigger company whose far larger count was, for it, below normal. Volume is fuel, not direction.
22Premarket Volume: One Number Worth ReadingPremarket dollar volume - each premarket minute's shares times its price, added up from 4:00 to 9:30 - tells you how many people have already shown up before the bell, and nothing about where the stock will go.
23Bid vs Ask: Why Your Order Didn't FillA stock has two prices, not one: the bid (the most a buyer will pay right now) and the ask (the least a seller will take). Buy now at the ask, sell now at the bid. The chart price is neither - it is the last trade, which already happened - so an order at the chart price can sit and never fill.
24The Spread: You Lose Money the Second You BuyThe spread is the ask minus the bid. Buy at the ask and sell at the bid in the same second and you are down exactly the spread - eight cents on a drawn quote, eighty dollars on a thousand shares - the cost of starting. A stock that trades all the time keeps its two prices close; one that hardly trades lets them drift wide.
25Thin Stocks: Some Charts Are FictionA price is the last trade, and every minute on a chart is built from some number of trades. On a busy stock that is hundreds every minute; on a thin one there are empty minutes and single-figure counts, so a price or a long spike can be made by a handful of trades almost nobody paid. Count the empty minutes before reading the shape.
26Market Cap Explained: A $1 Stock Is Not CheapMarket cap is the price of one share times the number of shares that exist - the size of the whole company - and it is printed, never worked out; a share's price alone says nothing about how big the company is.
27What Is Float? Not Every Share Is for SaleShares outstanding is every share that exists; the float is the part actually available to trade - smaller, reported by a third party, possibly stale - and a smaller pool means the same buying or selling moves the price further, in either direction.
28Stock Sectors: Four Companies, Same Day, Same ShapeA sector is a group of companies in the same business; some days the group moves rather than the company, so the sector tells you when to ask whether a chart is about the company or about the group - and never why.
29Support and Resistance: Draw the Line Before I DoA level is a price a lot of people are watching - not a floor, a ceiling or a force - and the twenty-day high is one anyone can compute and everyone gets the same answer; fewer lines, on purpose.
30Breakout vs Failed Breakout in Stock Trading: Same Break, Not the SameA breakout is the price trading above a level that held before - a description of the past; two real days traded above their lines the same way at the frozen moment, one held above and one closed back under, and the frozen frames could not tell them apart.
31Failed Breakout in Stock Trading: Has This Ever Happened to You?Going through a level and holding above it are two different facts, and the second is only knowable afterwards: the big candle through the line is a lot of people buying at once, every one of whom can sell - two real days frozen at the break cannot be told apart.

For learning only. Not financial advice, not signals, not stock picks.