Lesson 12 of 31 · Zero to reading a chart

Stock Market Hours: 9:30 to 4:00. This Is All of It

A 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.

Every chart of a U.S. stock has two edges. One on the left, one on the right. Do you know what time those edges are?

Most people do not. They think a stock trades all day, all night.

A price that never sleeps. It does not.

You know a chart is price against time. So the first question about any chart is: which time?

Here is a whole trading day. It starts at nine thirty in the morning.

It ends at four in the afternoon. New York time. Every weekday.

That is six and a half hours, and it is the whole thing.

This is one real day. One bar for every minute. Watch the clock in the corner.

Nine thirty. Ten. Eleven. Midday. One. Two. Three. Four.

And it stops. Not because the chart ran out. Because the day did.

Now watch the row underneath. It counts how much traded, minute by minute. Look at the shape of it.

Busy at the open. Quiet in the middle. Busy again at the end.

That is the shape of almost every trading day. Three parts.

The open, from nine thirty to about eleven. The middle, which is quiet. And the last hour, into the close.

Six and a half hours. Same window, every weekday, always New York time.

Everything you will ever study on a chart happened somewhere inside it.

Here is the mistake. People see a chart and assume it shows the whole day. Twenty-four hours.

It does not. It shows the New York session. Six and a half hours of the twenty-four.

Things happen outside it. You see the result at nine thirty the next morning. But the chart is the session.

Open any chart. Find the left edge and the right edge. Name the times.

Check yourself

What time does the regular session open?

Nine thirty in the morning.

What time does it close?

Four in the afternoon.

Which time zone?

New York.

Next lesson: This is one day. So is this. So is this..

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