Daily data

If you’re a novice at charting, start with the daily price bar.  Daily data is widely available and free or cheap. A surprising number of highly computer literate people choose to get their raw data from the public domain (like a free Web site or the newspaper) and type it into their database themselves.  Doing so gives them a “feel” for the information, even though an automatic download from a data service would take a lot less time at little cost.  That some traders like to work with raw data is a tidbit of market lore that should remind you of the importance of the components of the price bar.  You become very familiar with the data when you’re typing it into your database by hand or drawing it by hand on a chart with mouse or pencil.  You’re less likely to miss the relationship of today’s open to yesterday’s close, for example.  Daily data is preferable also because

Most of the commentary in newspapers, magazines, and Web sites refers to daily bars.  It’s the “base case.”

Embracing daily price bars puts you on the same page with the majority of people in the market.

Even people who use intra-day data (such as hourly bars) also look at the daily price bars.