What Is Price Action Trading

A bare chart

Price action trading is reading the price itself, from a chart with nothing laid over it. The chart above has the euro's daily candles — one per day — a level drawn at the 27 August 2025 low, two swings boxed, and the close that went under the level on 31 October. There is no indicator on it. A price action trader looks at a chart like this one and reads what the price did from the candles, the levels and the swings alone.

The three things

Three things are read from the bare chart. The candles, for what each period did: where it opened and closed, how far it reached and gave back. The levels, for the prices the market keeps stopping at — the floors and lids drawn from earlier highs and lows. The swings, for the order of the highs and lows: whether each is above or below the last. The word action means the price's own behaviour, and the three are three ways of describing it.

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