Price action: reading the chart without indicators

Trend and market structure

An uptrend is a succession of higher highs and higher lows; a downtrend, of lower highs and lower lows. When this sequence breaks — a lower low in an uptrend, for example — the structure changes, and it is often the first objective sign that a trend is weakening.

A market that makes neither is in a range: it oscillates between a floor and a ceiling.

Support and resistance

A support is a zone where buying has repeatedly stopped a decline; a resistance, a zone where selling has stopped a rise. These are zones rather than precise lines. The more often the price has reacted to a zone, the more it is watched — and a clean break of a well-tested zone often changes the reading.

Candlestick patterns

Each candle summarises the open, high, low and close of a period. Some configurations — engulfing candles, hammers, dojis, long wicks — describe the battle between buyers and sellers during that period. A pattern means much more at a key zone than in the middle of nowhere.

Gaps, range position and expansion

A gap is a space between two consecutive candles where no trade took place. An unfilled gap often remains a reference zone. The position of the price within its recent range, and whether that range is expanding or contracting, completes the picture: an expanding range signals a market that is waking up.

Price action in InvestAI

InvestAI reads the trend, the structure of highs and lows, support and resistance zones with the number of reactions recorded, candlestick patterns, unfilled gaps, the position in the range and range expansion. When a market's source does not provide open, high and low prices, the elements that depend on them are marked unavailable rather than estimated.