is a technical analysis tool that traders use to chart and analyse the price movement of securities. To read Japanese candlestick patterns, you’ll need to familiarise yourself with three elements on each candle: its colour, its body and its wick. Its colour tells you the direction of movement within the period, its body displays the market’s opening and closing levels and its wick shows the high/low range. It was invented by Japanese rice merchants centuries ago, and popularised among Western traders in the 1990s.