Guide · Basics
How to Read Candlestick Charts: A Beginner's Visual Guide
Candlestick charts pack four numbers into every bar. Once you know what each part represents, reading price action gets dramatically faster.
A candlestick chart shows price movement over fixed time intervals (a minute, an hour, a day) using a series of 'candles,' each summarizing four numbers for that interval: the open (price at the start), close (price at the end), high (the peak), and low (the trough). A simple line chart only shows the close — candlesticks show the full range of what happened.
Each candle has a rectangular 'body' spanning from the open to the close, and thin lines above and below called 'wicks' or 'shadows' marking the high and low. The body is typically colored — commonly green when the close is higher than the open (price rose over that interval) and red when the close is lower (price fell), though exact colors vary by platform.
The shape and size of candles carry information beyond just up or down. A candle with a large body and tiny wicks suggests one side (buyers or sellers) was in control the entire interval with little pushback. A candle with a small body and long wicks in both directions suggests the price moved a lot in both directions before settling roughly back where it started — often read as a sign of indecision.
Trade2Spike's charts use real-time candlestick data for every supported crypto and stock symbol, updating live as new price data arrives — the best way to get comfortable reading them quickly is watching real ones move in real time rather than studying static examples.