The wonderful thing about candlesticks is that you can see the direction of price movements at a glance. Not only do you determine if the candle in total is above or below the previous one, but you can also tell by the colours whether it marked a reversal or a continuation of the trend. 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. In another case, the opening and closing prices might have been the same. Then there isn’t any candle body but only wicks stretching up and down from the horizontal line that marks the open and close. The colour of the candle will tell you whether 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 will indicate a choppy market with big fluctuations. Trend based trading will are suspicious of Doji patterns, that might be an indication the market is becoming untrustworthy. Of course one candlestick by itself isn’t enough to form the basis of a trading call. For example, you can draw trend lines along the highest highs and lowest lows on candlestick charts. These will help you to spot whether a trend is forming, or if the lines are converging, whether a breakout might be expected. When you understand how to read candlestick charts you can base systems around these prospects.