Candlestick Anatomy
By the end, you can label Open, High, Low, and Close on any candle — green or red.
A box score for one slice of time. The body shows where the auction opened and closed; the wicks show the extremes it tested along the way.
Each candle covers a fixed time window (1 minute, 5 minutes, etc.) and records four prices: Open, High, Low, Close (OHLC).
- Green (up) candle: close is above open — so the top of the body is the close, the bottom is the open.
- Red (down) candle: close is below open — so the top of the body is the open, the bottom is the close.
- Wicks (the thin lines) always mark the High (top) and Low (bottom) — the extremes price reached and left.
The colour flips which body edge is open vs close. Everything else stays put. Use the labeler below until it's automatic.
“Green means good, red means bad.”
“Green means it closed above its open this window; the wicks tell me what got tested and rejected.”
In the labeler, flip the candle from green to red and watch which edges swap. Do it until you can predict the swap before it happens.
On a red candle, the top of the body is the…
- Every candle records Open, High, Low, Close.
- Colour decides which body edge is open vs close; wicks are always high/low.
- A candle is a box score, not a play-by-play.
Up next — A candle summarises — it also hides. Next: what one candle does and doesn't tell you.