What is a Japanese Candlestick?
While we
briefly covered candlestick charting analysis in the previous lesson, we'll now
dig in a little and discuss them more in detail. Let's do a quick review first.
What is Candlestick Trading?
Back in
the day when Godzilla was still a cute little lizard, the Japanese created
their own old school version of technical analysis to trade rice. That's right,
rice.
A
westerner by the name of Steve Nison "discovered" this secret
technique called "Japanese candlesticks", learning it from a fellow
Japanese broker. Steve researched, studied, lived, breathed, ate candlesticks,
and began to write about it. Slowly, this secret technique grew in popularity
in the 90s. To make a long story short, without Steve Nison, candlestick charts
might have remained a buried secret. Steve Nison is Mr. Candlestick.
Okay, so what the heck are forex candlesticks?
The best
way to explain is by using a picture:
Candlesticks
can be used for any time frame, whether it be one day, one hour, 30-minutes -
whatever you want! Candlesticks are used to describe the price action during
the given time frame.
Candlesticks are formed using the open, high, low, and close of the chosen time period.
·
If the close is above the open, then a hollow candlestick (usually
displayed as white) is drawn.
·
If the close is below the open, then a filled candlestick (usually
displayed as black) is drawn.
·
The hollow or filled section of the candlestick is called the
"real body" or body.
·
The thin lines poking above and below the body display the
high/low range and are called shadows.
·
The top of the upper shadow is the "high".
·
The bottom of the lower shadow is the "low".
