Learn · Reading the tape
Candles, intraday lines and indicators
Different ways to summarize the same trading history, with the session and interval kept in view.
Last updated: 2026-09-20
An intraday line compresses the tape
The company chart begins with an intraday view that connects price observations through the selected session. Each point summarizes a short interval rather than drawing every individual execution. Volume columns beneath the line show the corresponding share quantity. The average-price line uses accumulated turnover divided by accumulated volume. It is therefore weighted by shares traded: an execution of a thousand shares contributes more than an execution of one share at the same moment.
The reference line also has a specific meaning. Regular and all-session views compare with previous close; Overnight, Pre-market and After-hours use the Regular close. The five-day view uses its own interval starting point for percentage comparisons. Switching views can change the baseline without changing any underlying trade. The labels tell you whether a line above the reference means above yesterday's close, above the latest Regular close or above the beginning of a selected interval.
A candle preserves four observations
A candle groups executions into an interval and keeps the open, high, low and close. Its body spans the opening and closing prices, while its wicks extend to the extremes. If an interval opens at 30 CC, trades as high as 32 CC and as low as 29 CC, then closes at 31 CC, the body spans 30 to 31 and the full range spans 29 to 32.
Those four observations do not preserve the order of every event. The high could have come before the low or afterward, and two very different paths can produce the same candle. The city offers intervals from minutes through monthly candles. Shorter supported intervals can select a session, while four-hour and longer views use Regular trading. A daily candle can therefore agree with the Regular quote summary without including a separate Overnight extreme.
Volume belongs to the same interval
The VOL panel pairs a quantity with each price interval. A one-minute candle has its corresponding one-minute volume; a daily candle has the day's relevant volume. Taller columns mean more shares traded in that interval. They do not identify how many separate people traded or whether those shares changed hands repeatedly. Reading the selected interval before comparing columns avoids treating a day's activity as if it were a single minute's burst.
A price move and its volume describe two aspects of completed executions. The line shows where trades took place, while the column records how much changed hands. Neither tells you how much liquidity remains in the current Order book. For that, the live book is the relevant view. Moving between a chart and the book therefore changes from a historical summary to current waiting interest, even when both panels show the same company symbol.
Indicators calculate from existing data
The indicator menu includes MA, EMA and BOLL overlays, plus panels such as MACD, RSI and KDJ. A moving average summarizes recent closing prices over a chosen number of bars. An exponential average gives recent observations more weight. Bands and oscillators apply further arithmetic to that history. Changing from one-minute bars to daily bars changes the time covered by the same numerical period, because five bars no longer means five minutes.
These calculations do not receive future trades as input. An indicator crossing or a price touching a band is a relationship within existing data, not an instruction to the matching engine or a promise about the next candle. Parameters can be changed in the interface and are stored in that browser. Another device may use defaults. Two screenshots can therefore display different indicator lines over the same prices if their intervals or settings differ.
Where to inspect charts in the city
The company chart toolbar controls session, candle interval and visible range. In the candle view, the indicator menu exposes overlays and secondary panels. Keyboard left and right arrows let you inspect successive observations, and touch interaction provides inspection on mobile. Looking at the values attached to a selected bar reveals its actual open, high, low and close rather than requiring an estimate from the shape or the screen's vertical scale.
Watchlist provides another route to the selected company's charts. When signed in, the supported personal-trades overlay marks your own executions, connecting account history to market history. A mark identifies a completed fill rather than an unfilled limit you once entered. All prices remain fictional City Coin. The chart is a readable compression of those events; individual executions, order records and session labels supply the details that a line or candle necessarily leaves out.