How to read a candlestick chart
Every crypto chart is made of little bars called candles. Each one tells a four-number story about one slice of time. Once you can read one, you can read them all.
One candle, four numbers
A candle covers a fixed slice of time: one minute, one hour, one day. On a 1-hour chart, every candle is one hour. It records:
- Open: the price when the hour started.
- Close: the price when the hour ended.
- High: the highest price during the hour.
- Low: the lowest price during the hour.
Body and wicks
The thick part is the body: it runs from the open to the close. The thin lines above and below are the wicks (or shadows): they reach up to the high and down to the low.
Green means the price closed higher than it opened. Red means it closed lower. That's all the colour means.
What shapes can hint at
- Long body, short wicks: one side was firmly in charge for that whole slice of time.
- Tiny body, long wicks: lots of tug-of-war, nobody won. Often called indecision.
- Long lower wick: sellers pushed the price down, buyers pushed it back up.
These are hints, not predictions. A single candle tells you what happened, not what happens next.
Timeframes change the picture
The same hour can look calm on a daily chart and wild on a 1-minute chart. Beginners often zoom in too far and panic at noise. Start with 1-hour or daily candles.
Volume: the bars at the bottom
Most charts show volume under the candles: how much was traded in that slice. A big move on big volume carries more weight than the same move on almost no volume.
Where you'll see this in Nicholas
The live chart on every Nicholas dashboard is a candlestick chart, with volume underneath. Tap the chart and Nicholas explains it out loud. The Academy's "Candles and Bands" unit walks you through it with a short quiz.