From Traderpedia

On a typical chart, the price of an instrument is notated (on the y-axis) against time (on the x-axis) in graphic form. The price can be notated in several ways across infinitely variable time frames. The most common types of charts are line, bar, candlestick and point & figure. The most common time frames are a number of minutes, hours, days, weeks and months. Price data can also be plotted in tick form, meaning that each data point represents a number of traded prices rather then a specific length of time.

[edit] Types of Charts

[edit] Line

Line charts plot the closing price. (e.g hourly close)

[edit] Bar

Bar charts plot the open, high, low and close price in the form of a vertical bar. (e.g one minute OHLC or OHLCV)

[edit] Candlestick

Candlestick charts plot the open, high, low and close price in the form of a "candle", where the candle "body" represents the distance between the open and close and the "wicks" the distance between whichever is higher of the open/close and the high and whichever is lower of the open/close and the low.

[edit] Point and figure

Point and figure charts use a different method

[edit] See also

Tick chart