One candle is four numbers
A candlestick compresses a period of trading into four prices: open, high, low, close. Everything else about it — the colour, the body, the wicks — is a way of showing those four.
- The body runs from open to close. Filled or red means the close was below the open; hollow or green means above.
- The wicks (or shadows) run to the high and the low. They show where price went and was rejected.
That is the entire mechanism. A candle is not a signal. It is a summary of an argument between buyers and sellers over a fixed period.
Read the fight, not the shape
Beginners memorise candle names. Traders read what the candle says happened.
Take a candle with a small body near the top and a long lower wick:
- Price opened, then fell hard — sellers were in control
- Then it came all the way back — buyers absorbed the selling and pushed price up
- It closed near where it opened, or higher
The story: sellers tried, and failed. That is why a long lower wick after a downtrend is interesting. It is not because the shape is magic — it is because someone with size stepped in and the sellers could not hold their ground.