Candlestick

A candlestick packs four numbers — a stock's open, high, low, and close for a given period — into one visual shape. The "body" spans the open and close, usually shown in one color when the close is higher (bullish) and another when it's lower (bearish), while thin "wicks" above and below mark the high and low reached during the period. A candle with long wicks and a small body shows price got pushed to an extreme and pulled back before the close; a candle with barely any wicks shows the move was mostly one-directional. Traders usually read a sequence of candles together, rather than judging any single candle on its own.