What do tea leaves, a crystal ball, and fortune telling have in common? According to folklore they all foretell the future. To the uninitiated, reading the market is not any different, but to the experienced trader who knows how to read price movement and certain other metrics like momentum and trend, reading the market becomes less of a pure guess. Experienced traders watch for telltale signs based on price changes over time commonly known as candlestick patterns to discern which way the market MAY go, and when. The word "MAY" Is capitalized because regardless of what candlesticks MAY indicate, there is never 100% certainty in market movement. Candlestick patterns are based on a 400 year old manner in which Japanese rice traders did business. The reason candlestick signals are taught in virtually every trading course is because over this long period of time, certain price patterns have become known to provide a hint as to future price direction. A good trader needs to recognize certain candlestick patterns and so they are included in this course. Fortunately there are only a relative few that are considered major signals. Of those signals, some are recognized as reversal signals and some as continuation signals. It's more Important to recognize the reversal signals because market direction is most easily recognized at the turns.