How to read a Japanese candle (for real)
Beyond "red = down, green = up": what a candle says about the balance of power between buyers and sellers.
A candle is not a colour
Beginners learn that a green candle means "up" and a red candle means "down". True, but that is the zero‑level of information. A candle tells four numbers over time: open, high, low, close. Its colour is just a derivative — a visual shortcut for whether the close is above or below the open.
The body measures conviction
The longer the body relative to the wicks, the more the winning side controlled the session. A green candle with a long body and small wicks signals that buyers led from start to finish. A green candle with a small body and long wicks signals indecision: sellers showed up, perhaps even took control briefly, before being pushed back.
Wicks tell rejection
A long upper wick at the top of an uptrend is not a decorative detail — it is a message. Price rose, and was refused. Sellers were there. The same upper wick at the bottom of a consolidation means nothing — context changes everything.
The useful lesson
Never read a candle in isolation. Read it in the context of the trend, the volume, the level it tests. That is precisely what kNOWTrade trains: not the definition of a pattern, but its situated reading.