Line Chart in Trading: What It Shows, What It Leaves Out and When to Use One

A line chart is the simplest price chart: one point per period, usually the closing price, joined by a line. StockCharts gives the two usual reasons to use one. Some investors and traders consider the close more important than the open, the high or the low, and a line chart ignores the intraday swings. And for some series, such as certain indices or thinly traded stocks, only closing prices are available. The chart below draws the same days twice, as candles and as a line of closes, so that what the line leaves out stays visible.

Which price the line uses

The close is the default, not the only choice. TradingView's help page on line charts says the line is set to the close by default and can be switched to the open, the high, the low, or an average: (H + L)/2, (H + L + C)/3 or (O + H + L + C)/4 (TradingView Help Center, line charts, read November 2, 2026). An average smooths the line a little more; a line of highs or lows answers one question, such as where the highs of each day sat, but still leaves out the three other prices. Everything below uses the close, the usual setting.

What a line chart leaves out

The line uses one price out of four. StockCharts puts it plainly: line charts are less cluttered but do not offer as much detail, with no high-low range. On the 120 daily bars above, an S&P 500 ETF with dividend-adjusted prices from May 8 to October 28, 2026, the difference shows in three places.

Support on closes or on lows

The bottom of these 120 days is not the same on the two charts. On the line chart, the lowest point is the June 10 close of 721.77. On the candles, four days traded below that level: June 9, 10 and 11, and June 26, when the ETF fell to 714.81 during the session and closed at 727.18. A support line drawn on the line chart at 721.77 did not hold for long: the very next day, June 11, the ETF traded down to 720.76, under that close, and on June 26 it fell to 714.81, almost 7 dollars below. The line shows nothing of either day.

Gaps a line chart hides

StockCharts defines a price gap as a blank space on the chart, a price range in which no shares traded: an up gap when the low is above the previous high, a down gap when the high is below the previous low. A line chart joins one close to the next and never shows that space. On the ETF, 18 of the 119 bars after the first left a gap of this kind with the bar before. The largest was an up gap of 7.28 on June 15; the largest down gaps were 3.80 on July 23 and 3.49 on June 23.

On a market that trades around the clock the question hardly arises. On the last 120 daily bars of Bitcoin to the same end date, from July 1 to October 28, 2026, there was not one gap: each bar overlapped the one before it.

When to use a line chart

• Long histories. Over decades, the intraday range of a single bar stops mattering, and a line is easier to read. For moves of several hundred percent, combine it with a logarithmic scale.
• Comparing markets. Several lines fit on one chart, several sets of candles do not.
• Closing-price series. When only closes exist, a line is the honest choice.
• Not for entries and stops. Levels traded during the session, gaps and the open are where orders get filled, and the line has none of them.

Line chart vs candlesticks and other chart types

A candlestick chart shows the four prices of each period; hollow candlesticks add the comparison with the previous close that a line already shows by its direction. A Heikin Ashi chart smooths with averaged prices, a line by keeping only the close. Chart patterns can be drawn on a line, but the figures measured on our test bench, such as the double bottom, use the highs and lows of real candles, so a line chart can show a pattern the bench would not count, or miss one it would. All chart types are on the chart types page.