An investor usually wants to know when a stock will go up or maybe down, the start of a bull or bear, a change in the trend, the ...

>Yeah, so? Aren't there a jillion ways to do that, like ...
Yes, of course. (See Technical stuff for a few.)
But this one involves candlestick patterns, which I've never considered before.

>Huh? Candlesticks?
Yeah, the Japanese have been using "technical analysis" for a hundreds of years in tracking rice prices, plotting highs and lows, investigating ichimoku, harami, doji ...

>Hey! You speak Japanese!
Uh ... no. I got this stuff from here  

Anyway, a typical candlestick (or, I guess, ichimoku) might look like Figure 1 which shows the range from low to high and the close ... or maybe like Figure 2 which also shows the range from open to close, the colour depending upon whether the price went up or down. >This a real stock? Yes, it's Microsoft, in July, 2005. Notice that the stock went up, starting July 7. Do you see the magic hikkake pattern on July 7 that suggested this increase? >Are you kidding? The hikkake actually involves the highs and lows, so if we just follow them we can generate a chart like Figure 3. Figure 3

Figure 1 Figure 2

On July 6 the high went down and the low went up. See that?
On July 7, both went DOWN ... and that's a bullish hikkake.

>And that means MSFT is gonna trend up?
Maybe. But look at July 19-20. Again, the high went down and the low went up ... a possible hikkake.
But then both went UP on July 21 ... and that's a bearish hikkake.

>Any more examples?
Dan Chesler, the discoverer of the pattern, has a collection, here.
(Be sure to read his PDF articles here and here .)

>So it's guaranteed, eh?
Hardly. It just awakens you to possible continuations, it sets your grey cells in motion, you then exercise a modicum of cerebral prowess, you ...
>Yeah, yeah ... so where's the spreadsheet?
It's here (such as it is):

You just type in a stock symbol, click a Download button to get a bunch of prices, then look in awe at the identified hikkake patterns.
There's also a closeup that you can move back and forth with a slider button and ...
>Yeah, but it doesn't always work, right?
Did I forget to mention being awake, setting your grey cells in motion and exercising a modicum of cerebral prowess?
>Yeah, yeah. It's just a suggestion ... like the red traffic lights in Italy.
I assume I just click the picture of the spreadsheet to download it.
Yes.

Some candlestick jargon:

See this and this for more candlestick stuff.

See stockcharts for candlestick charts.