Four prices inside one interval
A candlestick summarizes an interval. The open is its first price, the close its last, and the high and low its extremes. The body connects open and close; the wicks extend to the extremes. Colors are a display convention, not a universal rule.
Imagine a five-minute candle that opens at 100, reaches 103, touches 99 and closes at 102. It finishes above its open, but the candle alone cannot tell you whether 103 happened before 99. That missing sequence matters if an entry, stop or expiry occurred inside the interval.
The last candle is still a draft
An unfinished candle changes as new quotes arrive. A long body may shrink; a breakout may disappear before the interval closes. If a rule uses closing prices, acting on an unfinished candle is a different rule. A historical chart can hide this difference because all its older candles are already complete.
Check how your platform labels timestamps: some use the opening time, others the closing time. Confirm the time zone and whether intervals include periods with no trades. A one-minute candle on one feed is not automatically identical to a one-minute candle elsewhere.
A shape needs context
A long wick tells you the interval traded away from its eventual close. It does not prove that a reversal will follow. The same shape can appear in a quiet range, after news or during a sustained trend, with different consequences.
Inspect the surrounding candles and their typical ranges. A move that looks dramatic on a tightly cropped chart may be ordinary on a wider view. Zooming out is useful for context, but switching timeframes until one supports your preferred prediction is not analysis.
Separate observation from interpretation
“The close is near the high” is an observation. “Buyers are certain to win next” is an unsupported prediction. Keep two columns in your notes so descriptive language does not quietly turn into certainty.
If you test a candle-based idea, define it numerically before looking for examples: body relative to range, wick size, location and when the candle must be closed. Include examples where the pattern fails. A memorable screenshot is not a representative sample.
Try this on paper
Pick five completed candles. Record open, high, low and close, then write one observation and one possible interpretation for each. Cover the next candle first. Reveal it only after writing your notes, and record the cases that contradict your interpretation.