Learn · Track 5: Read a chart · lesson 2 of 4 · Beginner
How to read a candlestick chart on PSX, with OGDC
How to read a candlestick chart (chart kaise parhein): open, high, low, close, body and wick, shown on a real OGDC daily candle, plus PSX rules.
By the SuperX research team · Reviewed by Umair Aslam, Co-founder & CEO · Published
A candlestick chart (candlestick chart kaise parhein, کینڈل اسٹک چارٹ) draws one candle for each period, and each candle holds four prices: the open, the high, the low and the close. The thick body runs from the open to the close. The thin wicks reach the high and the low. A real example: on 9 October 2026 OGDC opened at Rs 308.50, rose to Rs 310.15, fell to Rs 305.48 and closed at Rs 306.12 on 1,792,926 shares. That is a red candle with a body of Rs 2.38. In SuperX Charts, a green candle closed above its open and a red candle closed below it. You can open OGDC in SuperX Charts free, with no account, or read its current figures on its SuperX stock page. The OGDC figures in this post come from SuperX’s daily record of PSX prices, read from SuperX’s API on 3 November 2026, and each table says which day it covers.
What are the open, high, low and close?
A candle summarises all the trades in one period. The period can be a minute, an hour, a day or a week.
- Open: the price of the first trade in the period.
- High: the highest price traded in the period.
- Low: the lowest price traded in the period.
- Close: the price at the end of the period. On a daily candle it is the day’s closing price.
These are the figures for OGDC’s daily candle on 9 October 2026, from the SuperX market snapshot:
| Figure | OGDC, 9 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|
| Open | Rs 308.50 |
| High | Rs 310.15 |
| Low | Rs 305.48 |
| Close | Rs 306.12 |
| Previous close (the last day’s close) | Rs 308.66 |
| Change on the day | -Rs 2.54 (-0.82%) |
| Volume | 1,792,926 shares |
The change on the day is measured from the previous close, not from the open. This difference matters, and the next section shows why.
What do the body, the wick and the colour tell you?
Measure the parts of the OGDC candle:
| Part | How it is measured | Size |
|---|---|---|
| Body | open minus close | Rs 2.38 (308.50 - 306.12) |
| Upper wick | high minus the top of the body | Rs 1.65 (310.15 - 308.50) |
| Lower wick | bottom of the body minus low | Rs 0.64 (306.12 - 305.48) |
| Full range | high minus low | Rs 4.67 (310.15 - 305.48) |
The three parts add up: 2.38 + 1.65 + 0.64 = 4.67. The close sat Rs 0.64 above the low, which is 13.7% of the way up the day’s range.
The candle is red because the close (306.12) is below the open (308.50). The legend says -0.82% because the close is also below the previous close (308.66). The two tests usually agree, but they can differ. The open was Rs 0.16 below the previous close here. If a share opens 3% above the previous close and then falls back to close 1% above it, its change on the day is positive and its candle is red.
Colours are a convention. In SuperX Charts a green candle closed above its open and a red one closed below it. The Colour-blind colours option in the ⋯ menu draws up in blue and down in orange. Platforms differ: some draw a hollow body for a close above the open. Check the key of the platform you use. The getting started guide describes the legend, which prints the open, high, low and close of the bar under your pointer.
Candlestick charts are thought to come from Japan. Wikipedia reports an account that credits Munehisa Homma, a Japanese rice trader of the 18th century, and notes that the researcher Steve Nison dates them to the late 1800s (Candlestick chart, Wikipedia). The origin does not change how you read one.
How is a one-day candle different from a one-minute candle?
The rules are the same and the period is different. A one-day candle folds the whole trading day into one body. A one-minute candle folds one minute of it.
| Interval | One candle covers | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 minute | one minute of trading | Up to about 358 candles in a Monday to Thursday session of 09:32 to 15:30 |
| 1 hour | one hour | Several candles in each session |
| 1 day | one session | The default view; daily bars go back to 2016 |
| 1 week | one week | Five sessions or fewer in one body |
SuperX Charts has 12 intervals in Pro, from one minute to one month. Minute bars for companies begin on 31 August 2026, so there is a month of one-minute history. A daily chart can show several years.
A short interval shows the path a price took. A long interval shows the result. The OGDC candle above has a body of Rs 2.38, but a one-minute chart of the same day would show hundreds of smaller bodies and the order in which the high and the low were set. A daily candle cannot tell you whether the low came before the high. Try both views: OGDC, daily, six months and OGDC, one-minute, one day.
What are the volume bars under the candles?
Under the price, SuperX Charts draws a Volume pane. It has one bar for each candle, coloured like the candle, and a line for the 20-bar average of volume. Volume is on every preset in Simple, and the guide’s indicators page lists the rest. Volume counts shares traded, not rupees. OGDC’s 1,792,926 shares on 9 October 2026 compare with a 20-session average of 1,854,779 shares in the same snapshot.
Volume tells you how much trading made the candle. A Rs 2.38 body on a quiet day and the same body on a day of several times the usual volume are different facts, and the bar shows which one you have. In Urdu, the PSX glossary gives volume as “karobari hajam” (کاروباری حجم).
What is different about candles on PSX?
Three PSX rules change how a candle looks.
The Friday break. PSX’s trading hours page (checked on 3 November 2026) lists a regular market that opens at 09:32 and closes at 15:30, Monday to Thursday, after a pre-open from 09:15 to 09:30. On Friday there are two sessions, 09:17 to 12:00 and 14:32 to 16:30. A daily candle is one bar for the whole day, so Friday’s candle covers both sessions. On a one-minute chart, the bars stop for the midday break, and the Layers panel can draw the session lines and the Friday break under “PSX rules”. The trading hours post has the rest of the schedule.
Circuit limits. PSX applies a security-wise circuit breaker around the previous day’s closing price. Regulation 19.3 of the PSX Rule Book (27 August 2025 edition) sets it at 7.5% or Re 1, whichever is higher, rising by 0.5% every 15th day, or at another interval the Exchange notifies, until it reaches 10% or Re 1, whichever is higher. The Rule Book states that ceiling and not the level in force on a given day, so check PSX’s notices for that. It also says: “No trade in the respective security will be allowed beyond the above price fluctuation.” A price cannot trade beyond the limit, so a candle that opens and closes at a limit has no wick on that side. SuperX Charts’ own record for two bars on this site, with the oil and gas exploration sector page and the LUCK stock page for the companies’ current figures:
| Bar | What the record says |
|---|---|
| OGDC, 2 Mar 2026 | Down 10.0% on 2.0 times the usual volume, gapping 10.0% at the open; closed at the exchange’s daily price limit |
| LUCK, 8 Apr 2026 | Up 10.0% on thin volume (0.3 times the usual), gapping 10.0% at the open; closed at the exchange’s daily price limit |
SuperX Charts puts an L on the date axis under a bar that closed at its limit. The circuit breakers post explains upper and lower locks.
Ex-date gaps. On the ex-date a share trades without the coming dividend. OGDC’s Rs 6 dividend has an ex-date of 8 October 2026 in the snapshot. SuperX’s record marks that ex-date as confirmed, with a book closure start of 9 October. OGDC closed at Rs 315.91 on 7 October and Rs 308.66 on 8 October, a fall of Rs 7.25 (-2.29%). The KSE-100 fell 0.68% the same day (168,580.41 to 167,441.91), so the gap has more than one cause. These are the three daily candles around the ex-date (SuperX’s daily record of PSX prices):
| OGDC daily candle | Open (Rs) | High (Rs) | Low (Rs) | Close (Rs) | Volume (shares) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Oct 2026 | 318.00 | 318.45 | 315.00 | 315.91 | 2,260,742 |
| 8 Oct 2026 (ex-date) | 313.00 | 313.50 | 307.99 | 308.66 | 1,564,189 |
| 9 Oct 2026 | 308.50 | 310.15 | 305.48 | 306.12 | 1,792,926 |
The 8 October candle opened Rs 2.91 below the previous close (315.91 - 313.00), so the gap was in place before the first trade. SuperX Charts adjusts daily prices for bonus shares, rights and splits. It does not adjust them for cash dividends. So a cash dividend stays in the candle as an ordinary gap, and a D marks the ex-date on the axis. The Unadjusted switch shows the exchange’s own prices, and the Total return (dividends reinvested) indicator adds the dividends back; the guide’s adjusted prices section explains both. The ex-date post explains the dates, and the OGDC dividend page lists every payout.
What do the terms mean in Urdu and Roman Urdu?
| English | اردو | Roman Urdu | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chart | چارٹ | chart | The picture of prices over time |
| Candlestick | کینڈل اسٹک | candlestick | One bar with a body and wicks |
| Open | اوپن | open | The first price of the period |
| High | ہائی | high | The highest price of the period |
| Low | لو | low | The lowest price of the period |
| Close | کلوز | close | The last price of the period |
| Body | باڈی | body | The part from open to close |
| Wick | وِک | wick | The thin line to the high or the low |
| Volume | کاروباری حجم | karobari hajam (volume) | Shares traded in the period |
| Ex-date | ایکس ڈیٹ | ex date | First day a share trades without the dividend |
| Upper lock | اپر لاک | upper lock | A share stuck at the top of its daily band |
| Lower lock | لوئر لاک | lower lock | A share stuck at the bottom of its daily band |
| Circuit breaker | سرکٹ بریکر | circuit breaker | A limit on how far a price moves in a day |
Volume, ex-date, upper lock, lower lock and circuit breaker follow the forms in the PSX glossary in Urdu. The other rows are the usual Urdu-script spellings of the English words. SuperX has not found one fixed standard form for them, and Roman Urdu has no fixed spelling, so spellings vary. SuperX Charts also speaks Roman Urdu and Urdu: see the language guide.
Why does this post not teach candlestick patterns?
Names such as doji or hammer describe the shape of one candle or a few candles. A shape describes what happened in a past session. This post uses the shapes only to describe a session, and does not use them to say what a price will do next. If you want to see how a pattern name sits on a real chart, open the HBL or PPL share page and read the bars first. The same advice applies to the KSE-100 chart: read what each bar measured before you add a story to it.
Frequently asked questions
How do you read a candlestick chart?
Read each candle as four prices: open, high, low and close. The body runs from open to close and the wicks reach the high and the low. A green candle closed above its open and a red one below it in SuperX Charts.
What does a long wick mean?
It means the price travelled that far from the body during the period and came back. It does not say why, and it does not say what comes next.
What is the difference between a candlestick chart and a line chart?
A line chart joins the closing prices. A candlestick chart keeps the open, high and low as well, so it shows how far the price moved inside each period. In SuperX Charts you can switch with the Candles and Line buttons.
What does a candle with no wick mean on PSX?
The price opened or closed at the high or low of the period. On PSX it can also mean a bar that opened and closed at a daily price limit, since no trade can happen beyond it.
Is there a free candlestick chart for PSX shares?
Yes. SuperX Charts is free today and needs no account. Open the OGDC chart and press the Candles button.
Education, not investment advice.
START TRACKING YOUR PSX PORTFOLIO
SuperX is a free PSX portfolio tracker: every holding, dividend and book closure in one place. Leave your email and we write once, when the app opens.