Free Online Kagi Chart Maker

Create time-independent Kagi charts that filter market noise. Focus on significant price reversals only.

Built & maintained by the ChartLoad editorial team

What Is a Kagi Chart?

A Kagi chart is a Japanese technical charting method developed in the 1870s that completely ignores time intervals and only changes direction when prices reverse by a predefined threshold amount. The chart draws vertical lines that alternate between thick (yang) and thin (yin) depending on whether the price has broken above a prior high or below a prior low. Thick lines signal bullish conditions driven by demand, while thin lines signal bearish conditions driven by supply. Because the horizontal axis advances only when a significant reversal occurs, Kagi charts compress quiet periods and expand volatile ones, effectively filtering out minor noise and day-to-day fluctuations. This time-independent approach reveals the true underlying trend structure, support and resistance levels, and genuine shifts in market sentiment that time-based charts often obscure.

What Data You Need for a Kagi Chart

A Kagi chart needs just two columns: a date (or sequence) and a closing price — no open, high, or low, since intraday range is irrelevant. The thresholding engine does the rest, applying a fixed 3% reversal threshold (computed from the median price) automatically: a minimal input looks like 2024-01-02, 47.10 / 2024-01-03, 46.05 / 2024-01-04, 48.90.

When to Use a Kagi Chart

Use Kagi charts for technical analysis of stocks, forex pairs, commodities, or cryptocurrency when you want to strip away market noise and focus exclusively on meaningful price reversals. They are particularly effective for identifying long-term trend changes that get lost in the daily volatility of standard candlestick or line charts. Swing traders use Kagi charts to determine entry and exit points based on transitions between thick and thin lines. Portfolio managers use them to assess whether an asset is in a sustained uptrend or downtrend. They are also valuable for backtesting trading strategies that rely on trend-following signals, for comparing the trend behavior of correlated assets side by side, and for creating cleaner visual summaries of price history in financial reports and investment presentations.

Where a Kagi Chart Works Best

Filtering long-term trend in a noisy market — e.g. crypto or a momentum stock — so you act only when price reverses past a set percentage rather than reacting to every red candle.
Generating mechanical buy/sell signals: go long when the thin yin line thickens to yang (breaks above the prior shoulder), exit when yang thins to yin below the prior waist.
Reviewing a multi-year equity position where you want supply/demand turning points without the calendar gaps and earnings-gap noise that clutter a standard price chart.
Backtesting a reversal-threshold strategy on commodity or FX closes, since Kagi's time-independence isolates the effect of the percentage trigger alone.

Kagi Chart Example: MSFT trend filter

A swing trader pulls 20 daily MSFT closes and wants to ignore day-to-day chop; the chart redraws the line into a new column only when price reverses by more than the auto 3% threshold (≈ $10 on a ~$338 median).

Sample data: MSFT close ($): 310, 315, 312, 318, 325, 320, 328, 335, 330, 338, 342, 336, 345, 350, 347, 355, 360, 352, 358, 365 (3% reversal applied automatically).

small pullbacks like 342→336 ($6) and 360→352 ($8) stay under the ~$10 threshold so the line continues in one column, while the overall climb from 310 to 365 reads as a clean uptrend. (Uses the data.js sample directly; rendered as a single hv step line, x = column index.)

How to Create a Kagi Chart Online

Step 1: Open ChartLoad and select Kagi Chart from the chart type menu
Step 2: Enter or paste your chronological price data series from any financial instrument
Step 3: Set the reversal amount as either a fixed price value or a percentage of the current price
Step 4: Observe how thick yang lines indicate bullish breakouts and thin yin lines indicate bearish breakdowns
Step 5: Adjust the reversal threshold to find the right balance between noise filtering and signal sensitivity
Step 6: Export the Kagi chart as PNG, PDF, or SVG for technical analysis reports

Kagi Chart Best Practices & Tips

Kagi charts ignore time entirely and only draw new lines when price changes exceed a threshold amount.
Set the reversal amount to match the asset's volatility — too small catches noise, too large misses trends.
Thick green lines indicate an uptrend and thin red lines indicate a downtrend — explain this convention in your legend.
Kagi charts filter out noise, revealing the pure direction of price movement without time-axis distractions.
They are most useful for long-term trend analysis — combine with volume data from a separate chart for confirmation.
Compare Kagi charts with Renko charts — both filter time-based noise, but Kagi uses line reversals while Renko uses bricks.
Kagi charts originated in Japan in the 1870s and remain a specialized tool for trend-following traders.

Common Kagi Chart Mistakes to Avoid

Setting the reversal threshold too small (e.g. 0.5% on a volatile small-cap) so the line whipsaws on noise and the thick/thin yang-yin distinction loses all meaning — match the threshold to the instrument's typical daily range.
Feeding it OHLC and expecting the wicks to matter: Kagi only reads one price per period (usually the close), so high/low columns are silently ignored and a 'big range' day looks identical to a flat one.
Reading the horizontal time axis like a normal chart — Kagi compresses or stretches time, so three quiet weeks may occupy one inch while one volatile day spans several. Distance left-to-right is not elapsed time.
Confusing a Kagi with a Renko or Point & Figure chart: Kagi's signal is the line crossing a prior swing high/low (the 'shoulder' or 'waist'), not fixed-size bricks, so don't apply box-count rules to it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the reversal amount?

The minimum price change required to draw a new line in the opposite direction. Larger values filter more noise; smaller values capture more detail.

How do I read thick vs. thin lines?

Thick (yang) lines mean the price exceeded the previous high — bullish. Thin (yin) lines mean it fell below the previous low — bearish.

Is time shown on the x-axis?

No — Kagi charts are time-independent. The x-axis advances only when a reversal occurs, regardless of how much time passes.

Related Chart Types

Ready-Made Kagi Chart Templates

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