A price chart begins with people agreeing on prices. Imagine someone offers one share for ₹102 while another person is willing to pay ₹100. You have two quoted prices. Until a buyer and seller agree and a trade occurs, neither quote records a new trade.
Follow one session
A stock exchange such as the NSE or BSE helps match orders. A trading session is a period when trading takes place. Suppose these were all the trades in a tiny invented session. Read the rows from top to bottom.
| Trade | Price per share | Shares traded |
|---|---|---|
| First | ₹100 | 4 |
| Second | ₹106 | 2 |
| Third | ₹98 | 3 |
| Last | ₹103 | 1 |
Find the highest price. Now find the price of the largest trade by number of shares. Did you point at the same row?
Compare the two rows
The highest price was ₹106, for two shares. The largest trade was four shares at ₹100. Price tells you how much one share traded for. Volume counts the shares traded. Total volume was 4 + 2 + 3 + 1 = 10 shares.
Keep one number for each day
Suppose the daily record gives closing values of ₹100 on Monday, ₹103 on Tuesday and ₹101 on Wednesday. On a line chart, dates run across the bottom and prices run up the side. Each dot marks one day’s close. A line joins the dots so you can compare them.
Cover the trade table. Looking only at Tuesday’s dot, could you recover its ₹106 high?
Check your answer
No. Tuesday’s dot stores ₹103. Many different sessions could have the same close. In real exchange data, use the published closing value: an official close can be calculated differently from the final trade.
A daily candle brings four values together: open, high, low and close. You now have the vocabulary to read one.