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Technical Analysis

Reading a candlestick

Four numbers per candle, and how the shape they make tells you who won the session and by how much.

Technical AnalysisBeginner10 min read
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Everything in candlestick analysis derives from four numbers: where the session opened, the highest it traded, the lowest it traded, and where it closed. The genius of the candlestick, developed by Japanese rice traders in the 1700s, is that it turns those four numbers into a shape you can interpret without doing any arithmetic.

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Body and wick

  • The body spans open to close. Green (or hollow) means the close was higher than the open — buyers finished ahead. Red (or filled) means the reverse.
  • The upper wick runs from the top of the body to the high. It marks prices that were reached and then rejected — buyers pushed there and could not hold it.
  • The lower wick runs from the bottom of the body to the low. It marks a level where sellers pushed and buyers pushed back successfully.
Think of it like this
A day at a vegetable mandi

Tomatoes open at ₹40 a kilo. By noon a rumour of a supply shortage pushes them to ₹58 — but at that price nobody buys, and sellers start cutting. By late afternoon a truck arrives and prices sink to ₹36 before buyers pile in for the evening rush. The day closes at ₹52.

In the market

That is one candle: open ₹40, high ₹58, low ₹36, close ₹52. Green body from 40 to 52, a modest upper wick to 58, a long lower wick to 36. Anyone reading it later knows two things without being told: ₹58 was too expensive, and ₹36 brought out serious buying.

The three shapes worth memorising

ShapeWhat it looks likeWhat it means
MarubozuAlmost pure body, no wicksOne side controlled the entire session, open to close. Total conviction.
DojiA cross — no body at allOpen and close identical. A full session of argument that settled exactly nowhere.
Spinning topSmall body, long wicks both sidesHuge range, no progress. Both sides fought hard and neither won.

Size matters, relatively

A candle with a ₹40 range is enormous for a stock that normally moves ₹8 a day, and unremarkable for one that normally moves ₹60. Always judge a candle against the recent candles beside it, never in isolation. This is exactly what the ATR indicator formalises, and why professionals quote stops in multiples of ATR rather than in rupees.

Check yourself

A stock closes with a small body near the top of its range and a long lower wick, after falling for six sessions. What is the most reasonable reading?

Simple bhasha mein
Din bhar ki kushti

Ek candle matlab us din ki poori kushti ka scorecard. Open matlab kushti shuru kahan hui, Close matlab kahan khatam, aur wick matlab kahan tak dono ne dhakka diya par tik nahi paaye. Lambi upar wali wick ka matlab — bulls upar le gaye the, par bears ne wapas kheench liya.

What to remember
  • Four numbers per candle: open, high, low, close.
  • The body is what was agreed; the wicks are what was rejected.
  • Marubozu means conviction, doji means deadlock, spinning top means a fight with no winner.
  • Judge candle size relative to recent candles, never absolutely.
  • The same candle means opposite things in different contexts.
You reached the endMark it done and keep your streak going.
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Common questions

Short, direct answers to what people ask about this topic.

the four prices used to draw a single candlestick are
The open, the high, the low and the close of that period — usually abbreviated OHLC. Everything in candlestick analysis derives from those four numbers; the technique developed by Japanese rice traders in the 1700s simply turns them into a shape the eye can read without arithmetic.
what does the body of a candle mean versus the wick
The body spans the open to the close and represents what the session settled on; the wicks run out to the high and the low and represent prices that were reached and then rejected. Read as a negotiation, the body is the settlement and the wicks are the offers that nobody would take.
marubozu candle meaning
A marubozu is a candle that is almost pure body with little or no wick at either end, meaning price opened at one extreme and closed at the other. It records one side controlling the entire session without ever being pushed back — the strongest single expression of conviction a candle can show.
doji candle meaning
A doji is a session in which the open and close finish effectively equal, drawing a cross with no meaningful body. It records a full session of argument that settled exactly nowhere. On its own it is close to meaningless because it is extremely common; a doji in mid-range says nothing, while a doji after eight consecutive green candles at the top of an extended rally is a genuine warning.
what does a long lower wick on a candle mean
That sellers pushed price substantially below where it settled and buyers absorbed the selling with enough size to drive the close back up. It marks a price at which someone was waiting with real money. Whether that matters depends entirely on where it happened — the same long lower wick is meaningful after a six-session decline at a known support and unremarkable in the middle of a range.