Chart Patterns & Candlesticks: A Free Visual Guide

A look inside

Three pages from the PDF, shown as they appear in the file.

What's inside

• Part 1 · Chart patterns: how to read any pattern, when patterns fail, and context, volume and limits; then one page per pattern family (head and shoulders, double and triple tops and bottoms, triangles, flags and pennants, wedges, rectangles, cup and handle) and a page on telling similar shapes apart.
• Part 2 · Japanese candlesticks: anatomy of a candle, what a candle doesn't show, doji and marubozu, hammer and hanging man, inverted hammer and shooting star, bullish and bearish engulfing, and reading signals in context.
• Reference: common misreadings, sources and further reading.

Who it suits

Traders who are new to chart reading, and readers who want a compact reference to the shapes covered on TradingLoot. Start with the introductory pages before using the individual pattern and candlestick entries as a reference.

How to use it with the website

Use the PDF as a quick reference, and the website for depth. Each page ends with a link to the full online guide, which covers more variants, volume, retests and the sources in detail. For example, read a pattern page in the PDF, then open its online guide to see the inverse version and how failures are defined. The online guides start at chart patterns and Japanese candlesticks.

What it isn't

• All diagrams are idealised schematics, not real market data.
• It doesn't cover every pattern. For example, three-candle patterns such as the morning and evening star, and the harami, aren't included.
• It's an introduction to reading shapes, not a complete trading course or system. Recognising a shape isn't an instruction to trade.
• It contains no success rates, and it doesn't guarantee results. Trading carries risk of loss.

Source and transparency

Written and published by TradingLoot. Definitions and conventions come from StockCharts' ChartSchool and Thomas Bulkowski's ThePatternSite and are attributed in the text; the diagrams are TradingLoot's own. The guide's final page introduces StopTilt and LegitPropFirm, which share ownership with TradingLoot.