Granthara04.01.02Body vs wick: intent vs rejection

Every price in Part 04 comes from an unnamed vegetable market and is a teaching example. Nothing here is a quote, a recommendation, or a record of any listed company.

04.01.02 · Body vs wick: intent vs rejection

PreviouslyA candle keeps four prices from one chosen period and discards the path between them.

A price reached is not a price kept.

Rahul watches a buyer shout ₹23.40, then watches him walk away when the lorry is opened and the onions are poor. Somebody said that price out loud. Nobody paid it at the end. Both facts are on Lakshmi's board, in different parts of the drawing.

The body is what the session held on to. The wicks are what it let go of.

Updated

₹1.10
of Tuesday's ₹1.80 range that the session actually kept
Part 04 · Anatomy and Force
  1. 04.01.01 How to read a candlestick: the four numbers
  2. 04.01.02 Body vs wick: intent vs rejection
  3. 04.01.03 Range and relative candle size
  4. 04.01.04 Close location within range: the single most useful candle metric
  5. 04.01.05 Reading a candle as a story of the session
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Learn

Two kinds of price on one board

Tuesday's four numbers are ₹22, ₹23.40, ₹21.60 and ₹23.10, and they are not all the same kind of fact.

The open and the close are prices the session began and ended on. Between them sits the body, and that distance — ₹1.10 on Tuesday — is what the day carried from first bid to last.

The high and the low are prices the session reached. ₹23.40 was shouted and taken; ₹21.60 was shouted and taken. Neither was where the auction finished. The wicks are drawn out to them and then come back, because that is exactly what the prices did.

So the drawing has two registers. A body is what was kept. A wick is what was visited and handed back.

See it

Hold the day still and move only the last bid

The first bid, the highest and the lowest never change. Drag the last bid and watch the body and the wicks trade places.

Nothing about the day's travel changes as you drag. The range is ₹1.80 in every position.

Learn

The same three numbers, opposite readings

That slider is the whole lesson. Every position on it has an identical high, an identical low and an identical range — ₹1.80 of travel, every time.

At the top, almost all of that ₹1.80 is body, with a long tail beneath: the session went down to ₹21.60 and did not stay there. At the bottom, the same ₹1.80 is body the other way, with a long tail above: it went up to ₹23.40 and did not stay there.

Two boards. Same range, same extremes. If you described only how far the day travelled, they would be indistinguishable — and most of what people mean by "what the candle says" is in the part that differs.

Range tells you how far the session went. The body and the wicks tell you which of that it was still holding at the end.

Learn

What "rejection" is allowed to mean

People call a long wick a rejection, and the word is fair as a description of the four numbers: a price was traded at and the session did not finish there.

It is not fair as an account of who did what. The board does not record whether sellers pushed the price down and buyers lifted it, or whether one large lot arrived and was absorbed quietly, or whether a rumour went round and was contradicted.

Keep the two apart in your own sentences. Observation: the day reached ₹21.60 and closed at ₹23.10. Inference: the low was rejected. The first is on the board; the second is a story that fits it, and so do several others.

Tuesday, split into kept and visited
Range, low to high
₹1.80 — the day's full travel
Body, ₹22 to ₹23.10
₹1.10 kept to the close
Upper wick, ₹23.10 to ₹23.40
₹0.30 visited and given back
Lower wick, ₹21.60 to ₹22
₹0.40 visited and given back
Kept plus visited
₹1.80 — the three always add to the range
₹1.10held from the first bid to the last
₹0.70reached and handed back, at both ends
Try it

Two of Lakshmi's boards have the same high, the same low and the same first bid. One closed near the top, the other near the bottom. What is identical between them?

Try it

Kept, or visited and handed back?

The distance between the first bid and the last
The stretch between the last bid and the highest price
The stretch between the lowest price and the first bid, on a day that closed up
The whole range, on a day with no wicks at all
A price the session touched once and left

Lakshmi, on the buyer who shouted ₹23.40He said it, so it is on the board. He walked away, so it is on the thin part.

A body of ₹1.10 and wicks of ₹0.30 and ₹0.40. The obvious next question is whether ₹1.80 of travel is a lot — and that question has no answer until you say what you are comparing it with.

Remember

A body is what the session kept from its first bid to its last, and a wick is what it visited and handed back — so two boards with the same range and the same extremes can differ entirely in the part a reader actually reads.

Everything this chapter has told you, in order

  1. 04.01.01Four numbers survive a whole session, and knowing what was rubbed out is most of the skill.
  2. 04.01.02A body is what was kept; a wick is what was visited and handed back.
Next
04.01.03 — Range and relative candle size

Next: is ₹1.80 a big day? The question has no answer on its own.