The thick part of a candle, spanning the open and close; its size shows how much ground price actually held.
The body runs from the open to the close. Everything outside it is wick. A long body means price finished far from where it started, so one side dominated. A short body means the period ended near where it began, whatever happened in between.
Body colour conventions vary but the standard is green or hollow when the close is above the open, red or filled when below.
Body size is only meaningful relative to recent bars and to volatility. A $2 body is enormous on a $40 stock with a $0.60 atr and unremarkable on one with a $5 ATR. Compare body size to the average of the last 10 to 20 bodies rather than judging by eye, which is how a wide-range-bar gets defined in practice.
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.
The parts of a candlestick. One candle sums up a slice of time: the thick real body runs from the opening price to the closing price, and the thin wicks reach out to the highest and lowest prices traded. Colour tells you which way the body ran.Range versus trend. On the left price keeps bouncing between the same floor and ceiling, which is a range. On the right each high and each low is higher than the last, inside a pair of sloping lines called a channel.
Educational only, not advice. Spotted an error? Post in Site Feedback.