Bitcoin Forum

I've been half-assed following bitcoin for about a year, but have just recently actually gotten involved.  Not sure that I'm up to speculation trading, but I find this sub-forum nice re: discussion on the market and its movement.

My question to you guys:  I'm trying to figure out what these charts even mean. Especially the candle chart.  It'd be great if someone could do a FAQ on how to interpret the various charts, or at least if someone could provide some links that would. I'd (and possibly others) would greatly appreciate it.

http://www.babypips.com/school/

There must be a lot of info on the web, as candle charts are de facto standards for market data.

In very short: the candle is red, if the price in that time unit (e.g. 5 minutes) went down and is green, if it went up. The thin line, if visible, shows the whole price span during that time unit. For red candle, the final price is the lower end, for green candle, its the upper end.

I would recommend to watch MtGoxLive charts together with BitcoinCharts and play with them.

Green candles mean the close price is higher than the open price. Red candles mean the opposite. The time difference between opens and closes depends on which settings you use. If you are looking at a hourly chart, each candle means 1 hour, daily charts mean that 1 candle represents 1 day, etc. The price at which a candle begins is the open price, the price at which a candle ends is the close price. The bottom of a green candle is the open price, while the top represents the close. The bottom of a red candle is the close price, while the top represents the open.

Most of the time, a candle is made longer by lines on one or both sides of the candle. They represent the maximum price and the minimum price the price hit during that time. (Hourly, Daily, etc)

IF your newb, I would only trade with a few coins. Keep all the other coins IN YOUR STASH...

Don't give in to the crazy swings..

Or as a noob you will loose.

Wicked, thanks guys.  I wasn't aware that the candle charts were a general standard.  I don't follow the regular markets at all, however it makes sense that the btc markets would use the same tools.   

Thanks for your input, gives me a starting point to hopefully start making some sense of what they're saying.

Cheers!

Thanks for the heads-up/advice.  I'm no where near knowledgeable enough to be making bets on how the market will move, maybe in time...  For now I'm mining and keeping a large percentage of my returns in BTC and plan to keep it that way.  I think I really just want to be able to have some idea of where the market is heading as to whether I should scale back or amp up my miners at any given difficulty level.

Cheers.

+1 - I expanded my knowledge on forex over 9000 by reading that entire guide.  Excellent site.

That site looks very useful. I should start reading.

Yes, thanks for the link Blitzboom and the recommendation phorensic!

yeah there are a number on this forum who need to educate themselves regarding charts. good link blitz