Lesson 2 / 7
Reading charts
Candlesticks are the language of every trading platform. Learn what one candle says about the fight between buyers and sellers — then train your eye in the pattern game.
Quick check
1 / 2Two questions — get them right and the lesson is done.
One candle on a chart represents…
About this lesson
A candlestick compresses one period of trading — a minute, an hour, a day — into four numbers: where price opened, where it closed, and the highest and lowest points it reached. The body shows the open-to-close range and the wicks show the extremes. Read that way, each candle is a short record of a contest between buyers and sellers, and its shape tells you who was in control by the end.
That is genuinely useful context, and it is also where beginners tend to overreach. Patterns describe what already happened; they do not predict what comes next. A hammer after a decline suggests buyers stepped in, but plenty of hammers are followed by further falls. Patterns are most useful as a prompt to look closer, combined with the trend around them and confirmation from the following candles — never as a standalone signal to trade.
Key takeaways
- Each candle records open, close, high and low for one time period.
- The body shows the open-to-close move; wicks show rejected extremes.
- Patterns describe the past — they are hints about pressure, not predictions.
- Context and confirmation matter more than the pattern itself.