Hammer

A “hammer” is a candlestick with a small body (a small range from open to close), a long wick protruding below the body, and little to no wick above. In this respect it is very similar to a dragonfly doji; the primary difference is that a dragonfly doji will have essentially no body, meaning the open and close prices are equal.

When a hammer appears at the bottom of a downtrend, its long wick implies an unsuccessful effort by bears to push price down, and a corresponding effort by bulls to step in and push price back up quickly before the period closed. As such, a hammer candlestick in the context of a downtrend suggests the potential exhaustion of the downtrend and the onset of a bullish reversal. The “neckline,” often determined by the high of the previous bar, is the level that price must hit on the next candlestick in order to confirm the hammer’s reversal signal.