On a stock chart, what do the bars and vertical lines mean?

[dan]

I understand the x-axis is time and the y-axis is price, but what do the vertical dark and light lines and bars tell you?

[Califrich]

The vertical bar shows the total range (high to low) for the day (or if it is a weekly chart, the week; a monthly chart, the month, etc.). The horizontal bar that faces right shows the close, and the one that faces left shows the open.

[zsnow]

On a "OHLC bar chart," the price is represented by lines or bars which have little things sticking out of them. This is what Califrich was describing to you.

On most charts, you see the price on the top and under the price there are some bars. Those bars are called the VOLUME. The volume bars tell us how many shares were traded during the session. On a daily chart, each bar indicates one day. So, the size of a bar tells you how many shares were traded on a certain day. On a weekly chart, each bar shows the total number of shares traded during a certain week. On a monthly chart, each bar represents one month...