Charts

I'm a technical trader as opposed to a fundamental trader.

A technical trader only uses the price action of a stock, possibly along with some stock indicators to base his/her trades upon.  This type of trader does NOT care about the company's P/E Ratios, Profit and Loss, Earnings, Debt, Cash Flow, nor anything else to determine a trade.

A fundamental trader doesn't really care much about the price action of a stock.  This trader is most interested in the strength/weakness of the company.  They are interested in P/E Ratios, Profit and Loss, Earnings, Debt, Cash Flow, and many other items.  Basically they want to know as much as possible about the strength of the company.  When they find a company's stock that is trading at a lower price than what they believe it should be, then they buy.  A good example of a fundamental trader is Warren Buffet.  

A technical trader's main tool to see price action and to use that for trading is the Stock Chart.  A stock chart basically shows you the price of a stock in relation to time.  Stock charts come in many different styles and in many different time frames.

Each time period is represented by a mark on the chart showing the price that the stock traded for that time period.  The most common time period is a day.  Almost all time periods are available such as: month, week, day, multiple hours, single hour, multiple minutes, and the minute.

Each time period mark showing the price can be any of the following:

A.  Candle - Shows you the price that the stock opened, the price where the stock traded for the entire time period, and the price where the stock closed.  (top chart).

You will notice that the body of the candle is enclosed.  If the candle is white, then it means that the opening price was at the bottom line of the body of candle and the closing price was at the top line of the body of the candle.  Vice versa for black bodied candles.

The candle wicks, above and below the body of the candle (if any), shows where price has also traded for that time period.

You may want to look up more on candles via online resources.

B.  Bar - Shows you the same info as the Candle Chart, just in a little different way.  (2nd from top).

You will see one long vertical line.  That represents where price has traded during the entire time period.

The horizontal line to the left of the vertical line is the opening price.

The horizontal line to the right of the vertical line is the closing price.

C.  Area - shows you the closing price of the time period, but then shades in the chart below the price (2nd from bottom chart).

D.  Line - this shows you the closing price of the time period (bottom chart)

Charts are a personal preference.  There is no one correct way of viewing charts.  However, I would encourage you to use either Candle Charts or Bar Charts as they supply you with more info than the Area Charts and Line Charts.  This is because the Area and Line Charts only show you the closing prices and nothing else.

I personally use and prefer 6 month candle charts, where each time period represents a single day and I look at 6 months of the candles at a time.  However, I will sometimes use 1 year and 3 month daily candle charts as well.   It's simply a matter of preference and circumstance.