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Line, Bar and Candle Charts

Published by the Drishti team · Reviewed 2026-11-07 · Researched and edited with AI assistance.

Module 2 · Chapter 1 of 10 · ~4 min read · Tax and law facts as of November 2026

The last chapter showed how a P2P trade, a direct buyer-to-seller deal, can freeze your bank account. This one starts Module 2, reading the market. You open a price chart and meet a menu: line, bar or candle, and the question is which one to use.

• 4prices in every time slice
• 1price a line chart keeps
• ₹10,300day range a line chart hides

1.1 A line chart keeps one number

Every chart cuts time into slices, such as one day or one hour, and hundreds of trades happen inside each slice.

The exchange boils each slice down to four prices. Open is the first trade, high the top price, low the bottom price, and close the last trade.

A line chart keeps only the close and joins the dots. It is like checking your bank balance once each night. You see where the day ended, never the dips and peaks in between.

Crypto trades all 24 hours, so each app picks its own cut-off time for a day's close.

1.2 A bar chart adds open, high and low

A bar chart draws all four prices as one small symbol per slice. A vertical stroke runs from the low up to the high.

A short tick on the left marks the open, and a short tick on the right marks the close.

So the stroke height is the full range of the slice, and the ticks show where price started and ended.

Bars hold the same facts as candles, but the ticks are small and easy to mix up on a phone screen.

1.3 A candle is a bar with the body filled in

A candle chart draws the same four prices with a thick body between the open and the close. Thin lines called wicks reach up to the high and down to the low.

Most apps colour a candle green when the close is above the open, and red when it is below. Colours can differ by app, so check yours.

1.4 What each chart hides, and which to use

Each chart answers a different question about the same day. The formulas are day range = high minus low, and body = close minus open, using the ETH day above.

The line cannot give either answer, so its row says Not shown, because it never stored the high, low or open. Bar and candle give identical answers, and the candle just draws them in a way the eye reads faster.

So use candles while you learn, because all four prices are visible at a glance. Use a line when you want months of daily closes with the noise inside each day removed.

Your app may open on any of these types. Look for the chart-type menu and switch it yourself.

That menu may also list Heikin-Ashi, which averages candles to smooth them, and Renko, which draws fixed-size price bricks. You can skip both for now.

This chapter is educational only. It is not tax, legal or investment advice. Check current rules with a chartered accountant.

Next: how to read a candlestick chart.

Key takeaways

• A line chart keeps one number per time slice: the close.
• Bar and candle charts both carry open, high, low and close.
• A candle is a bar with the body filled in, which is easier to read.
• A line can hide the day's range, which was ₹10,300 in our illustrative ETH day.
• Use candles to learn, and a line to see long trends.

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Educational & illustrative only — not investment advice. Drishti Pro publishes AI-generated trade ideas and their public track record for information. Crypto is volatile and you can lose money. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Do your own research.