Time Periods
An intraday chart is a helpful tool for traders who base their decisions on how a stock reacts during the live trading session. They are a crucial part of the toolbox for day traders and other short-term traders, who use the intraday charts to determine potentially profitable times to enter and exit a transaction.
An intraday chart streams information about the stock's price into a chart that reveals the price as it changes throughout the day. Most often the intraday charts are set up in a candlestick format, which makes it easy to see if the price changes are signaling a bullish or bearish move.
Most traders look at intraday charts in either three-minute or five-minute increments. Those who are looking for a faster setting will use the three-minute periods, while those who are more patient prefer their information delivered in a five-minute period. Day traders will use the one-minute intraday charts, but that setting is too fast to help a typical trader, as it provides data that moves too fast to be useful in a longer-tem setting.
Watching intraday charts can be habit-forming for some people, who become entranced watching the candles dance up and down the price chart. Because of the lure of the intraday charts, many traders prefer to set their trades and walk away from the computer rather than be sucked into the trap of watching their stocks all day.
Intraday Chart info by BetterTrades Charts
Patterns can be followed on intraday charts just as they are on the daily charts. The same consolidation and retracement patterns are evident on the intraday charts as they are on the daily charts. These patterns may be played on an intraday basis in the same manner they are used on a daily chart.
