Single-candle signals
The same shape means opposite things in different places.
Name the common single-candle shapes — hammer, hanging man, inverted hammer, shooting star, marubozu, spinning top, belt hold — from their four numbers, and then do the part the names leave out: place each one on the chart, at a level and inside a structure, before reading anything into it. State the close that would make each reading false, and treat a candle with no location as what it is: a description of one period.
5 chapters · 6 quiz questions · 12 terms · included with a plan
Otus, on this module
A hammer and a hanging man are the same candle. Not similar — the same four proportions, two opposite names. If a shape carried its own meaning, that would be impossible. It is possible because the meaning comes from where the candle sits, and that is the thing to look at first.
The chapters
Each module ends with you doing what it taught — a written answer Otus reads, and a quiz.
- 01 · Read
Same shape, two names
Hammer and hanging man — and why location comes before the shape.
- 02 · Read
The upper-wick pair
Inverted hammer and shooting star — the mirror image, with the same catch.
- 03 · Read
All body, or almost none
Marubozu, belt hold and spinning top — the bars at either end of body-to-range.
- 04 · Watch
Watch: 20 candlestick patterns in 25 minutes
The longform course. The step ticks itself when it reaches the end.
- 05 · Write
In your own words
Three sentences. Otus reads them.
- 06 · Quiz
Six questions
A wrong answer still pays. It costs the combo, not the XP.
12 terms this module defines
The same definitions Otus uses in the lessons. All of them are in the trading glossary.
- Hammer
- A small body near the top of the range with a long lower wick, printed after a decline. It records prices below that were traded and not kept. A close below its low retires the reading.
- Hanging man
- The hammer's exact shape printed after a rise, read the opposite way. The proof that a candle's name comes from its location, not its proportions.
- Inverted hammer
- A small body near the bottom of the range with a long upper wick, printed after a decline: a push up that was tried and not held.
- Shooting star
- The inverted hammer's shape printed after a rise. Prices above were traded and refused by the close. A close above its high retires the reading.
- Long wick
- A wick long against its own body and against the ATR. The general case behind hammers and stars: a stretch of prices visited and handed back, whether or not it earns a name.
- Marubozu
- A bar that is all body — it opened at one extreme and closed at the other. A record of one-way progress in that period, and not a forecast of the next.
- Belt hold
- A bar that opens at its extreme and runs the other way, with a wick only at the closing end. The bullish one opens on its low after a decline.
- Spinning top
- A small body in the middle of the range, wicks on both sides. Both directions were tried and neither was kept — a record of balance, and very common in quiet hours.
- Location over shape
- A candle's reading comes from where it sits — after which move, at which level — before it comes from its proportions. Without a location, a named candle is a described candle.
- Prior move
- The bars that led into a candle. The only difference between a hammer and a hanging man, and between an inverted hammer and a shooting star.
- Confirming close
- Waiting for the next bar to close in the direction a candle reading implies. Slower, and still a record: it says the next period agreed, not that the one after will.
- The candle's own extreme
- Where a single-candle reading stops being true: a close beyond the high or low the candle itself refused. It names the price at which the shape was wrong.
Finishing it pays 150 XP and 3 keys on the game board, on top of what each chapter earns. XP measures what you learned — never what you earned. How levels work.
Education only. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell anything; the school teaches reading charts, never predictions.
Start with lesson one.
The first modules, Otus as your tutor and the game board are free. No card needed.