Japanese candlesticks are basically an ancient tradition of the Chinese for keeping tabs on the rice markets. Considered by many (safe to say at this point.) to be the best way to view an asses price action. Japanese candlestick have become popular in just about every liquid market.

Candlestick charts show a trend just like any other chart but with more detail. They use a value system of open, high, low and close. There are 2 basic parts to a candlestick; the body, that is a rectangle shape either filled or hollow, and the shadows that are simply lines above and below the body.

Your highs and lows for the session are marked by the tops (high) and bottoms (low) of the wicks. Likewise a close that is greater than an open is represented by a hallow candlestick the bottom is the open, and the top is the close. A close that is less than the open is represented by a full or black candlestick. The top is the open and the bottom is the close. (See below.)

Candlestick charts are considered more eye appealing and easier to understand than the ordinary bar or line chart. They are more intuitive and easier to identify immediately, and they also show price action relative to the past. (Best left for another article.)

There are different sizes of bodies as well. A long hollow body indicates there was a large advance in pricing between the open and close. A long filled body indicates the closing price was much lower than the opening. In return and in keeping with the same analogy, a short hollow body would indicate a small rise in pricing between open and close and a short filled body would indicate a small drop in pricing between open and close.

There are also candlesticks with full bodies and no wicks/shadows. These should be noted and have a name they are called Marubozu’s. The can be black or white (full / empty) and they appear when the open and close of the session are equal to the high and low. With the white/empty candlestick your high is equal to your close. With the black/full your low is equal to your close.

A long or short shadow with a short body are called spinning tops. Spinning tops represent indecision. The short body indicates that there was little change in the trading and the long shadows indicate there was a lot of activity with both bulls and bears. However it also indicates that neither buyer nor seller could get the upper hand, resulting in somewhat of a standoff.

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