Download this 1 Minute Forex Trading System FREE. Get these Forex Scalping Cheatsheets FREE. Download your FREE COPIES of the HVMM Ultimate Day Trading System plus the Risk & Money Management Tool just now! There are many candlestick patterns that are used by traders to identify trend changes in a security price. The most popular candlestick trend reversal pattern is the Hammer. First if you don’t know anything about candlesticks, a candle is formed with the high, low, opening and closing price of a security. Candlesticks have much in common with the bar charts but they have many things different too as well.
A Hammer represents the bottom of the trend. It occurs at the end of the downtrend. Hammers have small bodies and long shadows. Hammers have infact long lower shadow and a small upper shadow. What a hammer reveals is that after the price of the security opened on the market, sellers drove it down further.
By the end of the day, buyers have recouped much of their losses to end the day near or at the high. No Hammer is complete without confirmation. If the price action directly after the Hammer is down, no hammer has taken place. A true Hammer cannot have its low violated by subsequent price action. Volume should also be taken into account. If the volume is heavy, the Hammer formed is genuine.
Now a Hanging Man is identical to a hammer with the exception that it occurs at the uptrend. It crops up at the top of the price action on heavy volume and is confirmed by subsequent price action confirming the top. If the high of the Hanging Man is surpassed, then this signal is invalid.
Bullish and Bearish Engulfing Patterns are another candlestick trend reversal patterns. A Bullish Engulfing Pattern is formed when a candlestick bar opens lower than the previous candlestick’s close and closes higher than the previous candlestick’s open.
In simple terms, the candlestick body engulfs the previous candlestick’s body. Why is this pattern bullish? It represents a major defeat for the bears. Bullish Engulfing patterns are highly accurate but if the subsequent price trades below them than the pattern failed.
Similarly a Bearish Engulfing Patterns occurs at the end of an uptrend and marks important reversals. They are characterized by two bar formations. The first candlestick represents a small body. The second candlestick opens higher than the previous candlestick close and closes lower than the previous candlestick open, thus engulfing the previous candlestick body.
In the last decade use of candlestick patterns have become highly popular among the traders. These candlestick patterns are just a few of the many that can be used in confirming a change in the price action. Combining technical indicators with these candlestick patterns can be very powerful.
March 7th, 2010
NReed
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