1. What a chart can and cannot do
A chart is compressed history: where price went, how fast, with how much interest. It contains zero information about tomorrow that the price itself does not contain. Its honest use is context - regime identification and risk placement - not prophecy. Any chart method that promises the future is selling something.
2. Reading a candlestick
Each candle shows open, high, low, close for one period. A long body means one side dominated; long wicks mean rejection at the extremes; tiny bodies with long wicks signal indecision. One candle is trivia - candle patterns matter only in the context of trend, location and volume.
3. Trends and ranges: the two regimes
A trend shows higher highs and higher lows (up) or the reverse (down); a range shows horizontal boundaries. Strategy fit is regime fit: trend rules bleed money in ranges, range rules bleed money in trends. The most valuable single question in chart reading is "which regime am I in?" - and admitting when it changes.
4. Support and resistance as zones
Levels form where price spent time or turned - previous highs, lows, dense trading areas. They are zones, drawn with width. A level that has been hit five times is weaker, not stronger: each test consumes resting orders. Breaks retest; some breakouts fail exactly at retest.
Remember: A level without volume behind it is a line on a screenshot. Volume validates; everything else is geometry.
5. When this fails
Chart reading fails predictably in three situations: illiquid markets (thin books fake breakouts), manipulated assets (pump structures do not respect zones), and leveraged position sizing (a perfect read with a 10x position still ends at the liquidation price). Regime shifts render every historical zone silent - news does not check your lines.
Risk: The strongest chart-reading bias is seeing what you want: every chart supports a bull and a bear case simultaneously. Without a written rule for what invalidates your read, the chart is a mirror.