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I'm a beginner looking at the USD-BTC price chart on gdax:

https://www.gdax.com/trade/BTC-USD

It looks like this:

enter image description here

I'm trying to work out what the top graph means. Can anyone tell me what each of the following things mean (my guess in brackets)?

  • The grey bars (volume bought/sold)
  • Green hollow bars (sale prices range)
  • Orange filled bars (sale prices range)
  • Lines (trend lines of green/orange boxes with different averaging timeframes)
  • The O,H,L,C,V (Open,High,Low,Close,Volume)

Is there a reason that the orange boxes are filled and the green ones are empty?

What are the obvious search terms I should be using to get information on understanding these sorts of graphs?

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The top chart is called a 'candle stick chart' or 'OHLC candlestick' or 'OHLC bar chart' http://multicharts.com/trading-charts

When the price goes down during a time interval (from O to C) the box is filled in orange, when the price goes up it is green bordered with black inside. The exact colors are a matter of taste, as long as they are clearly different to the eye. The box has an up and a down spike giving the min L and the max price H during the interval. The box itself extends from O to C (or C to O) along the vertical dimension.

Volume is how many BTC were traded during each time interval (looks to me like "time interval is 5 minutes, i.e. 12 an hour).

Second chart (at bottom) with 'a valley' in green and orange is 'depth of book'. It shows how many BTC are (right side, orange colour) offered, and how may are bid (left side, green) at a certain price or better. The price is on the x axis. The bottom of the valley is where the market price is currently. This chart is a 'point in time' snapshot. (The OHLC chart on the other hand is historical).

For more info on the cumulative depth of book chart see here bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=147716.0 . It lets you see, for example, how many BTC you could sell instantly if you were willing to accept a rather bad (low) price.

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