# Candlestick patterns > Candlestick patterns are named arrangements of one or more candles — their bodies, wicks and closes — read as signs of what price may do next. - Canonical: https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/candlestick-patterns/ - Term set: https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/ --- Candlestick patterns give names to the shapes candles make: a body and its wicks, a close high or low in the bar's range, a sequence of two or three candles read together. Each name carries a reading of what price may do next, and the reading is what a trader acts on. The measurement is whether a pattern predicts more than its own geometry. The wick-rejection note found an effect that a volatility-matched surrogate reproduced: real, and meaning nothing. [Does a wick rejection mean anything?](/research/does-a-wick-rejection-mean-anything/) measured a common candle reading, the long wick taken as a sign that price was refused at a level. The split it found was large: the absorption rate at wick-touched levels ran 8% against 46% for levels reached by a close, at z = 198. Bars with long wicks reach further, so they touch more distant levels and produce a different mix of outcomes. A surrogate matched only on volatility and wick length, with no participants and no intent in it, reproduced the difference. The belief that a wick rejected the level because buyers stepped in sits on the [refutation index](/refutations/#claim-f5aed8af) as misleading. The same note found a quieter problem underneath. Counting a level as reached when any part of a bar crosses it gives roughly twice as many events as counting only closes beyond it, so the choice of reach rule can halve or double the sample a pattern study rests on before any pattern is judged. [Smart money concepts (SMC)](/glossary/smart-money-concepts/) read the same wicks through a story about institutions, and the surrogate question is the same one there. What a candlestick pattern cannot carry on its shape alone is a statement about who traded or why. This entry lists no pattern to trade and states no success rate, and every figure it quotes is the wick note's own. ## Commonly confused with Neighbouring concepts that get used interchangeably, and the distinction that actually separates them. - **[Price action](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/price-action/)** — Candlestick patterns are one vocabulary within price action, the named shapes. Price action reads the whole chart, whether or not a shape has a name. - **[Rejection block](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/rejection-block/)** — A rejection block is an ICT zone drawn from a swing candle's wick, between the body and the wick's tip, and expected to be refused again. A candlestick pattern is the named shape of one or more candles, read as a sign of what price may do next. - **[Candle range theory (CRT)](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/candle-range-theory/)** — Candle range theory reads one higher-timeframe candle's range and the next candle's excursion beyond it. Candlestick patterns name the shapes of the candles themselves. ## How to measure it in your own data A definition you cannot test is a definition you have to take on trust. This is the shortest honest route from the concept to a number you computed yourself. - **Records you need** — Every occurrence of the pattern you trade, with what price did next, and the volatility and wick lengths of the same bars. - **What you compute** — Build a surrogate matched on volatility and wick length that contains no participants and no intent, then compare the pattern's outcome split with the surrogate's. - **What the answer tells you** — If the surrogate reproduces the split, the pattern's effect is its geometry: real, and saying nothing about intent. Only an effect the surrogate cannot reproduce says something about the pattern itself. ## Questions and answers ### What are candlestick patterns? Names given to the shapes one or more candles make on a chart, read from how the bodies, wicks and closes sit against each other. Each name carries a reading of what price may do next, and that reading is the part a trader acts on and the part that can be measured. ### Are reversal candlestick patterns reliable? A pattern is as reliable as its record against a fair comparison. For the long-wick reading that many reversal patterns rest on, the fair comparison was a surrogate with the same volatility and wick length, and it reproduced the effect, so the bar's shape carried it rather than a reversal. ### Are candlestick patterns useful for trading? A pattern is useful to the degree it predicts more than its own geometry. That is measurable: compare the pattern's outcomes with a surrogate that shares its shape and none of its supposed cause. ### Does a pin bar or rejection candlestick mean anything? A pin bar, a candle with a long wick and a small body, is read as price refused at a level. The wick-rejection note measured that reading: bars with long wicks reach further, so they touch more distant levels, and a surrogate matched only on volatility and wick length reproduced the whole difference in outcomes. The refusal it appears to show is the bar's geometry. ## Related terms Derived from the links this entry makes and the entries that link back to it. - [Price action](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/price-action/) Price action is the reading of a chart from price itself — highs, lows, closes and their patterns — without indicators derived from it. - [Smart money concepts (SMC)](https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/smart-money-concepts/) Smart money concepts is a retail methodology label for reading charts through claimed institutional behaviour — market structure, liquidity pools, imbalances and premium-discount ranges — largely systematised from the ICT teachings. ## Cite This Definition APA BibTeX HTML Hadal Instruments. (2026). Candlestick patterns. Hadal Glossary. https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/candlestick-patterns/ Version dbd9b80, 2026-09-23. @misc{hadal_2026_candlestick-patterns, author = {Hadal Instruments}, title = {Candlestick patterns}, year = {2026}, url = {https://hadalinstruments.com/glossary/candlestick-patterns/}, howpublished = {Hadal Glossary}, version = {dbd9b80}, note = {Pre-launch publication; version dated 2026-09-23} } Source: Hadal Instruments, Candlestick patterns. Original Research Copy Citation **Version dbd9b80** identifies the commit that last changed this page in Hadal's content repository. That repository is not public, so the identifier does not resolve externally — it is published so a citation pins one specific state rather than a moving page. To obtain the exact version cited, use the [press and research route](https://hadalinstruments.com/press/).