Thursday, January 8, 2009

Japanese Candlesticks Step by Step

By Mark Deaton

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.

Japanese candlestick charts display market sentiment like other charts but most would agree you get a little more insight from a candlestick chart. Basically you measure 2 parts of a candlestick, the body, and the wicks. The body can be either full or hallow, and the wick or shadows, can be long or short, or not present at all. All tell a story.

The top of the wick / shadow marks your high for the session. The low wick, below the real body marks the sessions low. The open on a hallow body is marked by the bottom of the body, and the high is the top. A full candlesticks marks its open at the top, and its bottom is the close of the session. So if price closes higher than it opens, you get a hallow candlestick. If price closes lower than it opens you get a full candlestick. (See below.)[I:0:J]

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.)

All candlesticks have a body and a wick or shadow, unless the open close high and low are equal to each other in which case you would have a little dash and that's it. A white body is an empty body, and a black one is a full body. The empty/white body represents a close greater than the open, and a black/full body represents a close less than the open. The size of the body represents the distance between the 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.

Another important candlestick pattern is a spinning top. Spinning tops are represented by a long or short shadow / wick and a short real body. The short body tells us that there was a small gap between the open and close. If the shadow or wick is long it tells us that the highs and lows of the day moved hard but failed to remain strong. Whichever was long tells you of potential upcoming underlying strength. [I:1:J]

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