Some Japanese Candlestick reversal patterns consist of two price bars; some have two, some have three; and a couple of long-recognized and newly-identified-and-named ones have four bars. Even so, a single properly-formed bar can be fair warning of a possible trend reversal, too.

The Dark Cloud Cover is one of them. At the top of a trend, it will be seen as looming over the last white bar. It will need to be of some size in order to "loom;" for otherwise it might be just be a star or other part of another identifiable pattern. The Piercing Pattern is another, except this one "looms" from the opposite direction, coming up from below and threatening to impel prices higher. The Doji may be everybody's single-bar Japanese Candlestick reversal-warning pattern. It will appear at the top or at the bottom end of a substantial trend. Its unique feature will be that the opening price and the closing price are the same, or nearly so.

Candlestick analysis is not a study of raw numbers or of graphs. Fundamentally, it is Pattern Recognition. Candlestick price presentation makes it instantly easy to see what was- or is - going on in traders' minds. The widened-out vertical line of the typical bar chart so as form a cylinder, either left white to show that the closing price is higher than the opening price or filled in with Black if the close is lower than the open, brings a whole new dimension to trading the markets. Candlestick analysis is light years beyond bar charts from the standpoint of pattern recognition. Everyone should have a working knowledge of the Candlesticks. They're here to stay.