Candlestick anatomy
Learn to read a single candle correctly, which is the prerequisite for every chart-based method and takes about four minutes.
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere. Educational only, and not investment advice.
How to use this calculator
Each step names a control you will find on screen above.
- Open and Close
The first and last traded prices of the session. The block between them is the body, and its colour is simply whether the close was above the open.
- High and Low
The extremes touched during the session. The thin lines reaching out to them are the wicks — prices that were reached and rejected.
- Drag one value at a time
Move the close above the open and watch the candle change colour. Move the high far away and watch a long upper wick appear.
- Build the four shapes that matter
A long body with tiny wicks, a tiny body with long wicks, a long upper wick, a long lower wick. Those four cover most of what candlestick reading is.
Worked example: The long upper wick
A session opens at ₹500, races to ₹540, and closes back at ₹505. Set those four values and look at the shape.
What to enter
- Open
- ₹500
- High
- ₹540
- Low
- ₹498
- Close
- ₹505
What it shows you
- Body
- ₹5, green
- Upper wick
- ₹35
- Range
- ₹42
- Close within the range
- bottom 17%
technically an up day
seven times the body
Where this is taught
A calculator gives you a number. These explain what the number means and when it misleads you.
- Technical Analysis10 minReading a candlestickFour numbers per candle, and how the shape they make tells you who won the session and by how much.
- Technical Analysis9 minThe candle that has not closed yetAt 11 a.m. the daily candle is a hammer, by 1 p.m. it is a marubozu and at the bell it is a doji. Nothing is a pattern until the period ends.
- Technical Analysis9 minChart types and choosing a timeframeLine, bar and candlestick charts; linear versus logarithmic scale; and why picking the wrong timeframe is the most common beginner error.
- Technical Analysis12 minCutting false signals without cutting the good onesEvery filter that removes bad trades removes some good ones too. How to measure that trade-off instead of guessing at it.
- Technical Analysis11 minDivergence: when price and momentum disagreeOne of the most useful signals in technical analysis and one of the most abused. What it genuinely indicates, and why trading it alone loses money.