How to Read Candlestick Charts: A Beginner's Framework

Every candlestick on your chart represents a battle between buyers and sellers over a fixed period of time. Before you learn any pattern names, it helps to understand the four data points that make up a single candle: the open, the high, the low and the close.

The body of the candle shows the range between the open and close, while the wicks (or shadows) show the full range the price travelled during that period. A long body with short wicks suggests strong, decisive movement in one direction. A small body with long wicks on both sides suggests indecision.

Rather than memorising dozens of pattern names, we teach students to first ask three questions of any candle or group of candles: Who was in control — buyers or sellers? Where did that control happen relative to a key level? And did the following candles confirm or reject that control? This context-first approach is far more useful in live markets than pattern-spotting alone.

In our Price Action course, we spend an entire module building this reading skill on real historical charts before introducing any strategy — because a strategy is only as good as your ability to read what the market is actually doing.