A doji is a candle whose open and close are essentially equal — a body so small it's a line. Whatever happened during the period, the session ended in a draw: every push by buyers was matched by sellers and vice versa. A doji is the chart's way of printing a question mark — and the answer comes from where it appears and what happens next, never from the doji alone.

The four types

• Standard doji: modest wicks both sides — plain indecision
• Dragonfly doji: long lower wick, open/close at the top — sellers pushed hard and were fully rejected; a hammer with zero body, bullish at lows
• Gravestone doji: long upper wick, open/close at the bottom — the shooting star's extreme form, bearish at highs
• Long-legged doji: huge wicks both ways — violent disagreement ending level; volatility is loaded, direction unresolved

What a doji means by location

The same candle carries three different messages:

1. After a strong trend leg — the most important one: the side that was winning stopped winning. A doji after eight green candles is the first crack in momentum; as candle 2 of a morning star or evening star it's the hinge of the whole reversal.
2. At a key level — a doji at major support/resistance means the level is being contested rather than sliced through; the next candle usually resolves the vote.
3. Inside a quiet range — nothing. Ranges are made of indecision; dojis there are wallpaper. This is where beginners overread them.

How to trade it (never alone)

A doji is an alert, not an entry. The tradeable unit is doji + resolution:

• Setup: trend leg into a meaningful level; doji prints
• Entry: on the close of the next candle when it resolves against the prior trend (e.g. strong red after an uptrend doji at resistance)
• Stop-loss: beyond the doji's far wick — the doji marks the battlefield; beyond it, the reversal thesis is wrong
• Target: nearest opposing level; partials at 2R
• Skip: dojis mid-range, and dojis "resolved" by another small candle — no resolution, no trade

Practice reading indecision

Doji literacy is really momentum literacy — noticing when a trend's candles shrink from conviction to stalemate. That shift is nearly invisible in static screenshots and obvious in motion. Replay random charts in the free chart replay tool and narrate momentum candle by candle: strong, strong, smaller… doji — then predict the resolution before advancing. Score yourself over 50 calls; the backtesting method turns the same reps into a formal sample.

FAQ

Is a doji bullish or bearish?

Neither, by itself — it's a stalemate. It becomes directional through location (dragonfly at support leans bullish, gravestone at resistance leans bearish) and through the candle that resolves it.

What happens after a doji?

Statistically, slightly elevated odds of a direction change when the doji follows a strong trend leg at a level — and pure noise elsewhere. The follow-up candle carries more information than the doji itself.

Are dojis reliable enough to trade?

As standalone signals, no. As the hinge inside three-candle reversals, at levels, with resolution — yes, they're a core component of price action trading. Treat them as commas, not verdicts.