Read a candlestick by checking four things: its colour, the size of its body, the length of its wicks, and where it appears in the trend. Together they tell you who controlled that period, buyers or sellers, and how strongly.
- Colour: green means close above open; red means close below open.
- Body size: a long body shows strong conviction; a tiny body shows indecision.
- Wicks: a long upper wick means price was pushed back down from the high; a long lower wick means buyers rejected lower prices.
- Location: the same candle means different things at support, at resistance or in the middle of nowhere.
Take a hypothetical example. Nifty futures fall for five days, then form a candle with a small body near the top and a lower wick three times longer than the body, right at a known support zone. That suggests sellers tried to push lower and failed. It is a hint, not a signal on its own.
The mistake most beginners make is reading a single candle in isolation. Always look at the candle before it, the one after it, and the volume that came with it. A rejection candle on heavy volume carries more weight than one on a quiet day.
Reading candles in context, on multiple timeframes, is practised session by session in our Technical Analysis course.