Candlesticks are a method that describes patterns in price movements. Candlesticks are forms that indicate the trading range for the period, as well as show what the power balance between buyers and sellers was at any given point during that time frame. Understanding what candlesticks are and their significance is essential to gain a good understanding of options trading.
What is options trading?
Ever since the listing of options on exchanges, they have been gaining prominence and popularity among traders and investors owing to several benefits that they offer. There are lots of reasons why one should be interested in trading an option listed on an exchange. Some of the prominent ones include:
- Low transaction costs
- Transparency
- Liquidity
- Predictability in returns
- The existence of a secondary market where you can trade the option reduces the risk by a considerable margin compared to trading an option OTC.
What are candlesticks in trading?
Candlestick charts were first created by Munehisa Homma, a Japanese rice trader looking for better ways to analyze the market trends, predict where the market might go next, and take his positions in the market. He had been unsuccessful at predicting the markets even though he had been doing it for several years because there were no tools available to help him identify different price patterns quickly.
Even today, after more than two hundred years of their inception, candlestick charts are one of the most powerful tools that a trader can use to gain an edge over the market. This tool is so popular among traders around the world because it helps them identify different price patterns quite easily and make decisions accordingly about whether to enter into a position or not.
To understand what candlesticks are, one first needs to understand what candle charts are. A candle chart contains the same information as any other chart does. Still, they provide you with more information than just data on closing prices of bars or candles depending on whether you are using a line or bar chart, respectively.
The candlestick chart gets its name from the body and shadows of a candle, which indicates how its opening and closing prices move during a specific period. The colour and shape of these candles can tell you whether the prices closed higher or lower than where they opened, indicating the asset moved up at a price (white) or down (black).
Benefits of using candlesticks in trading
Traders use Candlesticks to help identify reversals, failed moves, and support/resistance levels within a trend. And while candlestick patterns will let you know when to get in or out of a trade, it is used in combination with other forms of technical analysis to help gauge more precisely when suitable entry/exit levels will be.
Candlesticks are also used to help measure volatility, which can be helpful for both short-term traders and long-term investors. You can use candlesticks effectively for both intraday trading as well as long-term investments. However, you must understand that they are just another form of technical analysis and should be used alongside other techniques.
The candlestick chart generally considers the most important single trading day and several days that preceded it. It gives you an accurate picture of short-term price fluctuations leading up to when you’re checking your charts at any given time.
To summarize
Candlestick charts help you understand where a trading session began and ended market volatility and future price action better than other forms of trading symbols. In addition to this, understanding what dark cloud cover pattern means or how inverted hammer candles work can help traders grasp options trading much more quickly than they would have been able to otherwise.
Suppose you are looking for further explanation about these patterns. In that case, you should contact a reputable online Saxo Bank broker who has years of experience in the world of options trading.
