Direct answer

To read a candlestick: identify the four prices (open, high, low, close) from the body edges and wick tips, note the direction from the body's colour or fill, compare body size to total range to judge how decisive the interval was, then check trade count and whether the candle has closed before drawing any conclusion.

Step 1 — Find the four prices

        │  ← high (upper wick tip)
       ┌┴┐
       │ │ ← body: open and close are its two edges
       └┬┘
        │  ← low (lower wick tip)

High — top of the upper wick.
Low — bottom of the lower wick.
Open and close — the two edges of the body.

Which body edge is which depends on direction, which is Step 2.

Step 2 — Read the direction

The body's colour or fill tells you whether the close was above or below the open. Conventions vary by platform — check the legend rather than assuming.

Close above open: the top edge is the close, the bottom is the open.
Close below open: the top edge is the open, the bottom is the close.

Step 3 — Compare the body to the total range

This is where proportion carries information:

body ratio = |close − open| / (high − low)

Ratio near 1 — price moved decisively and stayed. Little was rejected.
Ratio near 0 — price covered a range and returned. A lot was rejected.
Long wick on one side — price reached there and did not hold.

Worked example. Open 100, high 108, low 99, close 101.

body  = |101 − 100| = 1
range = 108 − 99    = 9
ratio = 1 / 9       = 0.11

A small body with a long upper wick: price reached 108 and closed back near where it started. The interval covered 9% of range and ended 1% up.

Step 4 — Look at what came before

A candle in isolation says little. The same shape means different things after a long advance versus after a decline versus in a flat range.

Read at least a handful of preceding candles for context before attaching any meaning.

Step 5 — Check the trade count

The step most guides omit, and the one that prevents the worst errors.

Two candles can render identically while one is built from 3,000 trades and the other from four. The chart cannot distinguish them; the data can.

CoinDock's candles expose trades_count through the candles API.

If a candle was built from single-digit trades, its shape is not a signal. It is a handful of transactions and your eye connecting them.

Step 6 — Check whether it has closed

An unclosed candle is still changing. Its close is the last trade so far; its high and low can still extend; its shape can invert before the interval ends.

CoinDock's candles carry is_closed for exactly this. Reading a forming candle as final is a common and entirely avoidable mistake.

What a candle cannot tell you

Worth stating explicitly:

The path. Open 100, high 108, low 99, close 101 could be up-then-down or down-then-up. The candle does not say.
The order of extremes. Whether the high or the low came first is not encoded.
Who traded. One participant or a thousand.
Whether you could have traded there. A price appearing on the chart does not mean size was available at it.

The reading routine

Four prices identified
Direction read from the legend, not assumed
Body-to-range ratio noted
Preceding candles reviewed for context
Trade count checked
Closed status confirmed
Order-book depth checked if I intend to act

Common mistakes

Assuming a colour convention instead of checking.
Reading a candle as a path.
Reading an unclosed candle as final.
Skipping trade count on unfamiliar markets.
Attaching a pattern name and treating it as a prediction — see candlestick chart guide.

How to Read a Candlestick — Step by Step