Candlestick Charting For Dummies®

Creating Candlestick Charts Using Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is an excellent tool for running all sorts of financial analyses. One of the great features of Excel is its charting tool, and, of course, that tool includes candlestick charts as one of its choices.

In this section, I explain the process for creating a candlestick chart with Excel, from finding and entering the data to building the chart. I even clue you in on a few ways to add some additional information to your Excel candlestick charts, including moving averages, trendlines, and volume data.

Finding the data for your chart

Before you can create an Excel candlestick chart, you need to compile the right data. There are multiple sources for data, and a quick Internet search can turn up dozens of options, some of which I explore earlier in this chapter. (See “Turning to the Web for Candlestick Charting Resources”.) Of those options, I typically use Yahoo! Finance for its ease of use, and that’s the source I proceed with in this section. (See the section “Using Yahoo! Finance for charting, trading, and investing”.)

To get the data into Microsoft Excel, follow these steps:

1. Go to www.finance.yahoo.com .

2. Enter a stock symbol in the box at the top of the page and click the Get Quotes button.

For this example, I use IBM.

3. In the blue box at the left of the page, click Historical Prices.

4. Above the data is a box labeled Set Date Range; use that to set the range of dates for which you want to obtain data, ...