Reading a candlestick

Almost every trader reads price on a candlestick chart, and once you can read a single candle you can read a thousand. Each candle summarises the price action over a fixed slice of time — one minute, one hour, one day — into four numbers: the open, the high, the low, and the close.

The thick part of the candle is the body, and it spans from the open to the close. If price finished higher than it started, the body is drawn in your "up" colour (often green or hollow); if it finished lower, it is drawn in your "down" colour (often red or filled). The thin lines poking out above and below are the wicks or shadows, and they mark the highest and lowest prices reached during that period.

So a single candle tells a small story. A long green body with tiny wicks says buyers were firmly in control from open to close. A small body with long wicks on both sides says the market fought hard in both directions but ended near where it began — indecision. A candle with a long lower wick and a close near the top hints that sellers pushed price down but buyers rejected the low and drove it back up.

You are not predicting the future from one candle. You are reading who won the last hour, and by how much.

You are not trying to predict the future from one candle. You are learning to read the balance of buyers and sellers in each moment, and then to notice how candles cluster into patterns and trends. Start by simply narrating candles out loud as they form: who won this period, buyers or sellers, and by how much? That habit turns a wall of colour into a readable conversation.