How To Read Candlestick Charts
Sunday, May 30th, 2010The fantastic thing about candlesticks is that you can see the direction of price movements at a peek. In some cases naturally the open or close will be the high or the low. In that case you don’t have a wick in one or both directions. If there is no wick in either direction, this is called a Marubozu pattern.
In another case, the opening and closing costs may have been the same. Then there is not any candle body but only wicks stretching up and down from the horizontal line that marks the open and close. This is called a Doji pattern. If the body of the candle is long with short or non existent wicks, close to Marubozu, this indicates a reasonably steady movement, possibly part of a trend. The colour of the candle will tell you whether or not it is an upward or downward movement.
On the other hand if the wicks are long and the body is short or non existent, more like the Doji pattern, this could indicate a unsettled market with big fluctuations. Trend based trading will tend to be suspicious of Doji patterns, that might be a sign the market is becoming untrustworthy.
Of course one candlestick by itself isn’t enough to form the foundation of a trading decision. You will always look at a collection of candles. For example, you can draw trend lines along the highest highs and lowest lows on candlestick charts. When you know how to read candlestick charts you can base systems around these prospects.
