Candlestick Chart

A candlestick chart draws each period's four prices as a single shape: a rectangular body spanning the open and the close, and thin lines above and below — the wicks or shadows — reaching to the high and the low. The body is filled or coloured one way when the close is above the open and another way when it is below, so direction is readable at a glance. This is a drawing convention rather than a calculation: the same period plotted as a bar chart, or as a line joining closing prices, carries exactly the same information. What the shape adds is emphasis, not data. A long body says the open and the close were far apart; long wicks say price travelled well beyond where it settled. Named candlestick patterns are built on those proportions, which is why they depend on the period the chart is set to — a shape that exists on one time frame simply does not exist on another, and neither is more real than the other. Colour and fill conventions vary between platforms and are usually configurable, so describing a candle as red or hollow only means something once that chart's own settings are known.