Bars, candlestics and gaps: basics of basics

In the last lecture, we talked about what technical analysis is and why it works. Now we get practical. Before you can draw a trend line or spot a chart pattern, you need to be able to read the most basic unit of information on any chart: a single price bar.

This lecture covers three things - how a bar and a candlestick actually encode information, the handful of candlestick patterns worth knowing early on, and what a price gap is and why it happens. By the end, you'll be able to look at a chart and understand exactly what each little shape is telling you.