A spinning top is a candle with a small body and upper and lower wicks of roughly similar length. It shows indecision: buyers and sellers both pushed the price during the session, but neither managed to win by the close.
The colour does not matter much. What matters is the small body relative to the total range. Say a hypothetical stock opens at ₹300, rises to ₹309, falls to ₹291 and closes at ₹302. The body is just ₹2 against an ₹18 range. That is a spinning top.
On its own, it does not predict direction. Its meaning depends on where it appears:
- After a strong rally, it can hint that buyers are tiring.
- After a sharp fall, it can suggest selling is slowing down.
- Inside a sideways range, it usually means nothing at all.
Spinning tops are often the middle candle of star patterns, such as the morning star or evening star, which is where they become more useful.
The common mistake is reacting to a spinning top as if it were a reversal signal. It is closer to a yellow traffic light: slow down, tighten your stop, and wait to see what the next candle does. On intraday charts, these candles form constantly around lunchtime when volume dries up. We train students to separate meaningful indecision from routine noise in our Technical Analysis course.