Forex Chart Types: Candles Charts - Bar Charts - Line Charts

In trading, there are different chart types that traders can use in their trading. These chart types are provided on the platform software and on the platform traders can then choose which chart type is best for their method. A trader can choose to trade with forex line charts, forex bar charts or candlestick charts.

A Forex chart is a graphical representation of price movement of a currency pair over a given period of time.

The chart is drawn on a grid and the user of this chart is at liberty to choose which chart time-frame they want to trade with. The trader might select to use hourly charts, daily charts or even 1 minutes chart time-frames.

To draw charts, 3 methods are used. Techniques used to draw the charts defines the type of chart.

The 3 types of charts are: - Candles Charts - Bar Charts - Line Charts

1. Line charts
2. Bar charts
3. Candlesticks charts - Most popular

Line Chart - MT4 Line Charts

A single line is plotted from one closing price to the next, forming a continuous line.

This type of chart provides very little information on chart and is therefore not very popular among traders. In fact this type of chart gets rarely used by traders.

Line Chart in Trading Forex - This type of chart leaves out important information about price movement. Information such as opening, high & low point of the price that aren't represented on the graph.

This makes this type of line chart to be considered sketchy by technical analysts.

The chart below highlights an example of a forex line chart.

Bar Chart - MT4 Bar Charts

Forex Bar Charts - This type of chart shows the opening, closing, the high and the low, for a particular trading price interval and is represented by bars that look like ones drawn below - hence its name bar charts

• Bar Charts - bar chart has a vertical bar showing the total price movement.
• Left horizontal bar the opening
• Right horizontal bar the closing
• High & low denoted by the highest & lowest point

However, these bar charts aren't very easy to work with, especially when they aren't magnified. It becomes very hard to analyze the bar charts with ease when trading the market thus making them not very popular among traders.

A Bar chart that is not magnified makes it hard to view the opening and closing price as highlighted by this example:

Candlestick Chart - MT4 Candles Charts

Candlesticks Charts - This is the most widely used type of charts, they resemble candlesticks, thus their name - candle-sticks charts.

Candle-sticks charts highlights the opening, closing, the high & the low of a particular trading price interval.

The range between the open price & the close price is called the body of the candle.

Forex candlesticks charts is the most popular type of charts among online traders because it is the easiest to interpret when trading the market. Forex candle charts also gives a lot of data about the price movement. This makes candlesticks charts the most widely used type of charting in FX.

Candlesticks Charts

Below is an example of candles charts. To learn more about candles charts, read this topic:Analysis of Japanese Candles Pattern Setups in Forex Trading.

How to Select These Chart Types on MT4 Platform

To draw any of the types of charts on the MT4 Platform a trader can use the buttons below found on this MT4 platform.

Drawing Charts on MT4 Platform

• To Choose a Bar Chart Click the Bar Button

• To Choose a Candles Chart Click the Candlestick Button Key

• To Choose a Line Charts - Click the Line Button