The doji family
An hour that ended where it began — a record of balance, not a warning.
Recognise a doji from its open and close, and know that the cutoff for "close enough" is a convention that differs between charting packages. Read the dragonfly and the gravestone as the limits of the hammer and the shooting star, placed and invalidated the same way. Treat "indecision" as a description of a finished period, and see how a doji inside a sequence — a doji star, an abandoned baby, a tri-star — gets its meaning from the bars around it.
5 chapters · 6 quiz questions · 12 terms · included with a plan
Otus, on this module
Every trading forum has someone posting a doji with the word "indecision" and three warning emojis. The word is fine. The market was undecided — for that one period, which is over. The mistake is hearing it as a warning about the next one. A doji is a draw, recorded.
The chapters
Each module ends with you doing what it taught — a written answer Otus reads, and a quiz.
- 01 · Read
A doji is a draw
Open equals close — what that records, and why "indecision" is not a signal.
- 02 · Read
Dragonfly and gravestone
A doji at one end of its range — the limit of the hammer and the shooting star.
- 03 · Read
A doji between two bars
Doji stars, the abandoned baby and the tri-star — where the neighbours carry the event.
- 04 · Watch
Watch: The Doji
One minute, then the step ticks itself.
- 05 · Write
In your own words
Two 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.
- Doji
- A bar whose close is at or very near its open. The period finished where it started, and everything it travelled was handed back.
- Doji cutoff
- The body size, as a share of the range, below which a charting package calls a bar a doji. It is a convention and it differs between packages, so the same bar can be named differently.
- Indecision as a record
- "Indecision" describes the finished period accurately: neither direction was kept. It says nothing about the next period, and hearing it as a warning turns a record into a forecast.
- Long-legged doji
- A doji with long wicks on both sides: a long way travelled in both directions, and no progress kept.
- Dragonfly doji
- Open, close and high at one price, with a long lower wick — the limit of a hammer. A close below its low retires the reading.
- Gravestone doji
- Open, close and low at one price, with a long upper wick — the limit of a shooting star. A close above its high retires the reading.
- Doji as a change
- A doji carries a reading only when it differs from what came before — after bars that kept their range, or at a level after a run. Inside a quiet range it is just more of the same.
- Doji star
- A doji whose body sits beyond the previous bar's body. In the classic definition there is a gap between them; on continuously traded markets there usually is not.
- Evening doji star
- A strong rising bar, a doji star above it, then a falling bar closing below the middle of the first body. The doji is the pause; the third bar is the event. A close above the star's high refutes the reading.
- Abandoned baby
- A doji separated from the bars either side by true gaps, wicks included. It needs two real gaps, so it is rare on stocks and nearly absent intraday on continuously traded markets.
- Bullish tri-star
- Three dojis in a row after a decline, the middle one gapped below the other two. Three balanced periods in one place — a record of three hours, not a forecast of the fourth.
- Continuous-market open
- On markets that trade around the clock, each bar opens where the last one closed, so the gaps many classic candle definitions require rarely appear except across the weekend.
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.