Market Insights

Candlestick charts have become one of the go-to methods for traders to visualize market data. To help you trade the way you want, TradeStation offers two distinct candlestick charting styles to cater to different preferences and analytical needs. 

Choosing Your Candlestick Style 

From the Chart Analysis tool, users can click the Style button and choose between “Candle” and “Candle with Trend.” Other types include OHLC (open, high, low, close) bars, Line and Area charts. 

Standard Candlesticks 

 The default candlestick style uses solid green bodies for up candles and solid red bodies for down candles. Here’s how to interpret them: 

• Green candle: the close is greater than the open (up candle) 
• Red candle: the close is lower than the open (down candle) 
• Gray wicks: these indicate the high and low of the candle 

Apple (AAPL), daily chart, with simple candlesticks, with data menu shown.

Candlestick with Trend

 This more traditional style uses hollow and filled candles to represent price movement: 

• Hollow candle: up candle (the close is greater than the open) 
• Filled candle: down candle (the close is less than the open) 

Candlesticks with trend use colors to indicate whether a candle rose or fell from its preceding period. This may be useful because prices may drop sharply, bounce from their low but stay below the previous close. The resulting red candle will highlight its negative performance from one day to the next. A simple candlestick, in contrast, would be green.

Inversely a stock may open sharply higher and give back some of its gains while remaining positive. Candlesticks with trend would mark such price action with a solid green bar, while simple candlesticks would be red.

Apple (AAPL), daily chart, with simple candlesticks, with data menu shown.

Further Customization 

 TradeStation users can adjust candlesticks with the Data button at the top of the chart. This allows customizing aspects like up/down colors and the thickness of candlesticks.

Here are some potential steps:

1. Click on the Data button
2. Select “Edit Symbol…” A dialog box will appear.
3. Click the Style tab on the left
4. Select chart type from the Bar field
5. Select Bar components in the lower box. Each can be customized with Color and Weight to the right.
6. Previews will appear in the box below.

By gaining a better understanding of these candlestick charting options in TradeStation, traders can gain insights into price action and trends, helping them make more informed decisions in the fast-paced world of trading.