How to Read Candlestick Patterns

What a candle actually shows, and the handful of patterns worth learning first -- doji, hammer, engulfing, and the morning/evening star.

Tom Whitfield · September 21, 2026 · 5 min read

A candlestick chart shows four prices for every time period you’re looking at: the open, high, low, and close. That’s it — but arranged the right way, those four numbers tell you a lot more than a simple line chart ever could.

The anatomy of a candle

Each candle has a body and, usually, two wicks (also called shadows). The body is the range between the open and close price. The wicks show the highest and lowest prices reached during that period, even if price didn’t stay there.

Color tells you direction: a candle where price closed higher than it opened is usually shown in green or white (“bullish”). One that closed lower than it opened is usually red or black (“bearish”). A long body means strong, decisive movement in one direction. A tiny body with long wicks means the price moved a lot during the period but ended up close to where it started — a tug of war.

Single-candle patterns worth knowing

Doji — open and close are almost identical, so the body is a thin line. Signals indecision: neither buyers nor sellers won that round.
Hammer — a small body near the top of the candle’s range with a long lower wick, appearing after a downtrend. Suggests sellers pushed price down but buyers stepped in hard before the close.
Shooting star — the mirror image of a hammer: a small body near the bottom with a long upper wick, appearing after an uptrend. Suggests buyers pushed higher but lost control before the close.
Marubozu — a candle with little or no wick at all, just a long body. Shows one side was in full control the entire period.

Diagram labeling the open, high, low, and close of a single candlestick — The four prices behind every candle.

Multi-candle patterns

Bullish engulfing — a small bearish candle followed by a larger bullish candle whose body completely covers the first. Often read as a potential reversal after a downtrend.
Bearish engulfing — the opposite: a small bullish candle followed by a larger bearish candle that swallows it, after an uptrend.
Morning star — a three-candle pattern (bearish, then a small indecisive candle, then a strong bullish candle), read as a potential bottom.
Evening star — the same idea in reverse, read as a potential top.

Reference grid of eight candlestick patterns: doji, hammer, shooting star, marubozu, bullish engulfing, bearish engulfing, morning star, evening star — Eight patterns worth being able to recognize on sight.

How traders actually use these

No candlestick pattern works in isolation, and none of them predict the future with any reliability on their own. What experienced traders do is treat a pattern as one piece of evidence — more meaningful when it shows up at an existing support or resistance level, alongside rising or falling volume, or in the context of the broader trend, than it is sitting in the middle of nowhere on the chart.

Treat candlestick reading as a skill you layer onto a broader trading plan and risk management approach, not a shortcut that replaces one. This article is educational only and isn’t a recommendation to trade any particular instrument.

Every pattern, explained on its own page

The eight patterns above cover the essentials. Each of the 45 named patterns below has its own in-depth page covering exactly how to identify it, what it signals, and how reliable it tends to be.

Single-candle patterns

Two-candle patterns

Three-candle patterns

Four- and five-candle patterns

Written by Tom Whitfield

Technical Analysis Writer · Published September 21, 2026

Covers chart reading and technical analysis for GlobalFXHub, including our candlestick pattern library.