Candlesticks
Every bar you see on a chart is one candle. The name comes from the shape — a candle with a wick. Each candle packs four prices: that window's open (starting price), high (highest price), low (lowest price), and close (final price).
Numbers make it easy. Say one Bitcoin 1-hour candle opens at 100 million won, touches 101.5 million at one point, gets pushed down to 99.5 million, and finishes at 100.8 million. The body spans 100 to 100.8 million; the 700,000 won sticking out on top is the upper wick, and the 500,000 won poking out below is the lower wick. Close above open makes it a green, bullish candle.
The color only tells you the result of the window it covers. Green means that hour ended above where it started — it says nothing about which way the next candle goes. A candle is strictly a record of time already passed.
Wicks are 'went there and came back' marks. A long lower wick means price got pushed way down during that window but climbed back before the close; a long upper wick means it ran up and fell back. Traders layer readings onto these marks — 'buyers stepped in,' 'sellers capped it' — and that's what they are: interpretations.
Stringing candles together and hunting for specific shapes gives you candlestick patterns — the ones with names like hammer and engulfing. But whatever the pattern, at its core it's a record that 'this shape appeared in the past.' What price did afterward is something you have to count from actual data.
What the data actually shows
A single candle is raw material, not a signal. Barobara takes signals built from candle shapes — like the bullish engulfing (1h) or the hammer (1h) — and counts exactly what price did after each past occurrence. The results mostly sit near fifty-fifty. This is a past distribution, not a prediction — and when it's a coin flip, we show you a coin flip. Measured results for other candle signals are in the setup catalog.
Common misconceptions
'A string of green candles means it keeps going up?' Candles are records of time already passed. A few consecutive green candles don't set the direction of the next one. Count the past distribution of consecutive up/down signals and it's often around a coin flip.
'A long lower wick is a bounce signal?' A long lower wick does mean 'pushed down, then recovered' — but that's separate from any guarantee it rises next. Measure wick patterns like the hammer and the odds don't lean hard either way.
FAQ
Q. If the candle is green, does that mean price is rising right now?
It only means the close was above the open for the window that candle covers — a record of the past. The color alone can't tell you which way the next candle goes.
Q. What does a long wick mean?
It's a mark that price traveled to that level and came back within the window. Interpretations get attached — 'buyers held the line,' 'sellers capped it' — but they're interpretations, not predictions.