Build the candle from the same OHLC
A standard candlestick represents one chosen period. The body spans the open and close. The upper wick reaches the high. The lower wick reaches the low.
Thursday opened at ₹104 and closed at ₹105, so its body is ₹1 tall. Its high was ₹111, leaving a ₹6 upper wick above the close. Its low was ₹96, leaving an ₹8 lower wick below the open.
Because the close is above the open, platforms commonly show this as an up candle. Colours are configurable. Read the prices and direction before trusting green, red, filled or hollow styling.
Switch the drawing, keep the data
Both drawings encode O ₹104, H ₹111, L ₹96 and C ₹105. Switch between them and watch what receives visual weight.
The candlestick adds no fifth price. It makes the ₹1 open-to-close body easier to see.
What the body makes fast
The body makes one comparison immediate: did the period close above or below its own open, and by how much? Across many periods, bodies also make relative open-to-close size easier to scan than the small ticks of OHLC bars.
The wicks preserve the visible extremes beyond the body. Thursday’s total range is still ₹15, even though its body is only ₹1. A small body does not mean a quiet period; this candle proves it.
Candles are therefore useful when the question concerns the relationship among open, high, low and close. They do not show the order in which the high and low occurred, time spent at a level, volume or every trade.
Before you choose this chart
- Why use it?
- To scan the relationship between open and close quickly while retaining the period’s high and low as wicks.
- Who is it for?
- Readers comparing session structure, candle size and close location across consecutive time periods.
- When should you use it?
- Use it when the question depends on exact OHLC values and you want the open-to-close distance to stand out visually.
- Why should you not use it?
- Do not use it when a closing line answers the question with less clutter, or when the coloured bodies tempt you to infer a route or prediction the data does not contain.
- What will you miss?
- The order of moves inside the period, repeated visits to a price, time spent there, trade count, volume and the identity or intention of traders.
Thursday has a ₹1 body and a ₹15 full range. Which reading is supported?
A candle shape is evidence, not a verdict
A long wick, a small body or a run of one colour describes recorded price relationships. A name placed on that shape is a classification. Neither proves why price moved or what the next candle will do.
Part 04 measures candle bodies, wicks and named patterns. Here the chart-choice rule is narrower: choose candles because the body-and-wick arrangement answers your question, not because a familiar shape promises a result.
Before comparing candles, check the symbol, timeframe, session, price adjustment and platform colour rule. A daily candle and a five-minute candle compress different periods; raw and adjusted data can draw different historical gaps.
What does the candle actually contain?
The standard candle preserves actual period OHLC. The next lesson deliberately transforms or filters those inputs, so the resulting marks must be read as a specialised lens rather than a direct price record.