Contextchanges how the chart reads

Spaces the price axis by percentage instead of dollars. On a five-year chart of anything that has tripled, this is the honest view.

Log scale spaces the price axis so equal vertical distances are equal percentage moves rather than equal dollar moves. A climb from $10 to $20 and one from $100 to $200 draw the same height — both doubled. On linear scale, the second draws ten times taller for the identical return.

The difference only matters when the chart spans a large price range. On a 3-month chart of a stable name the two scales are nearly identical; on a 5-year chart of anything that has multiplied, linear scale makes early history invisible and recent wobbles monumental. Trendlines on growth names also only draw straight in log space.

Mostly a long-lookback honesty setting: when judging where multi-year support sits on a name that has run, log scale is the view in which those percentages read truthfully. Short-dated strike work at current prices is unaffected by the choice.

Like everything in this guide, these are descriptions of conditions and reference levels — context for your own decisions, not instructions to trade.