How to create a candlestick chart (II) in Tableau

Candlestick charts are often used in finance to analyse price movements over time. Let us then see how to build step-by-step progress a candlestick chart on Tableau.

Step 1. Create the candlestick chart

1. Connect to the data source (in this case we are not using Sample Superstore).
2. Right click on Date in the data pane. Select Change data type > Date.
3. Drag Date on Columns by right clicking on it in the meantime. Select MDY (Date) in blue.
4. Drag Date on Filters. Select Month/Year in blue and select All.
5. Drag High on Rows.
6. Drag Low on the y axis until you see two green rectangles appear and drop.

7. Drag Measure Names off the Marks card.
8. Drag Date on Detail in the Marks card. Right click on it and select Day May 8 2015.
9. Right click on the y axis and select Edit axis. Untick Include zero.

10. Create a calculated field. Let’s call it “Up or down” and type if avg ([Close])>AVG([Open])then “up” ELSE “down” END .
11. Drag Up or down on Color in the Marks card. Select blue for “down” and red for “up”.
12. Create another calculated field. Let’s call it “Closed up” and type if avg ([Close])>AVG([Open])then avg ([Close]) END .
13. Create another calculated field. Let’s call it “Closed down” and type if avg ([Open])>AVG([Close]) then avg([Open]) END .
14. Drag Open and Close on Detail in the Marks card. Right click on each of them and select Measure (Sum) > Average.
15. Drag the calculated fields Closed down and Closed up on Detail in the Marks card.
16. Click on the Analytics pane on the left. Drag Reference Band and drop it on Cell. Fill out the window as shown below.

17. Drag Reference Band and drop it on Cell again. Fill out the window as shown below.

18. Done!

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