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Heikin Ashi Cheat Sheet
"Your ultimate Heikin Ashi cheat sheet. Learn how to read Heikin Ashi candles, identify trends, and use this trading tool effectively with clear examples."
Wikilix Team
Educational Content Team
Think about the possibility of opening up a chart, and immediately knowing if the market has strong trend momentum, is slowing down, or moving sideways. That's the benefit of a Heikin Ashi cheat sheet. It's a quick reference that removes the noise and makes it easy to see what's happening. Instead of getting lost in the noise, you can recognise what is essential.
In this article, we will introduce you to Heikin Ashi candles, explain how to read them, and highlight the most popular patterns to look for. Finally, we will discuss how to use Heikin Ashi in your trading.
"Heikin" means average, and "Ashi" refers to pace. Put the two terms together, and Heikin Ashi means "average pace." Heikin Ashi uses modified formulas to create smoother candles, as opposed to a candlestick chart that will tell the trader the open, high, low, and close of any given time period.
The idea is simple. Instead of portraying raw market data with a bunch of little fluctuations, Heikin Ashi presents the action in averaged data. The overall result is a tidied-up chart, and it will make it easier to see trends.
Your platform calculates the Heikin Ashi for you most of the time, but knowing the logic helps you understand what you are looking at:
• Close: Average of the open, high, low, and close of the current period.
• Open: Midpoint between the previous Heikin Ashi open and close.
• High: The highest value of the current period high, the Heikin Ashi open, or the Heikin Ashi close.• Low: The lowest price of either the current period's low, Heikin Ashi open, or Heikin Ashi close.
These definitions reinforce the relationship between candles and why trends look smoother and extreme price moves do not immediately show up on the charts.
Consider this the heart of your cheat sheet - These are the signals you should memorise:
1. Strong Uptrend: A series of green (or hollow) candles with little or no lower shadows indicates bullish momentum.
2. Strong Downtrend: A series of red (or filled) candles with little or no upper wicks indicates a bearish move.
3. Indecision: Small-bodied candles with both an upper and lower shadow often signal an indecisive or potentially reversal candle.
4. Consolidation: Alternating colours and choppy candles indicate a sideways and/or range-bound market.
5. Potential Reversal: A sudden colour change (after a long trend) can be an early warning sign of a directional shift - but use it more as a caution, rather than an automatic signal.
If Heikin Ashi didn't have a tangible advantage, it wouldn't be so widely used. Here is a summary of why traders appreciate it:
• Cleaner charts: It wipes away a lot of the noise that makes candlestick charts look overwhelming.
• Easier to see the trend: The smoothing effect demonstrates whether the market is trending or consolidating.
• Reduced stress: Many traders find that Heikin Ashi is not as mentally taxing because it simplifies the decision-making process.•. • Keeping trades on for longer durations: Instead of selecting trades based on price action, the visual indicator allows traders to stay in trades when price action continues to go their way, instead of getting shaken out based on minor pullbacks.
What would mentions of reasonable warnings be without a caveat? There are just a few things as traders using the Heikin Ashi process that are not shown as well:
• Delayed signal trades: Since Heikin Ashi is based on average, the triggering of a signal can be delayed for a reversal on a Heikin Ashi candle that may have been caught on a standard price action candle.
• No real price level: The opening and closing of a Heikin Ashi candle do not represent the real price; this could create some concerns when you want to enter with as precise a stop loss or entry as possible.
• Appearance of price gaps: Sharp moves may appear strange due to overnight gaps that have generally been smoothed.
• The candles begin to look crowded - they are becoming worthless: While consolidating or going sideways, those candles are less critical and start to dirty the chart as they look similar to price action.
• Wouldn't recommend scalping: Very short timeframes, you can lose opportunities because Heikin Ashi signals can lag.
To fully take advantage of the Heikin Ashi in your trading, you would have both good discipline and education:
• Use with regular candles: You want to use the standard candle chart next door to see the actual price while looking at Heikin Ashi to see the change in trends, as well as the better organisation.
• Stay on long time frames: Trade higher time frames (daily, 4hr, etc.) so you are getting a higher reliability signal than a much shorter timeframe.
• Confirm with other known patterns and or known indicators: While Heikin Ashi will hold as a standalone strategy, you may garner a higher impact assessment reading with Heikin Ashi alongside relative strength index patterns for confirmation, for volume to add strengths to the trade setup.
• Wait for confirmation: Before acting on one candle change, proactively seek confirmation through multiple signals.
• Remain disciplined in risk management: Since you can have delayed exits with Heikin Ashi, make sure you have protective stops in place and do not over-leverage yourself.
While Heikin Ashi is a powerful tool, other styles of charts can help you depending on how you approach your trading:
• Traditional candlestick charts: Show price information with no smoothing at all.
• Renko charts: Show price movement only, thereby ignoring time - this is great for staying on trends.
• Range bars: Filter out small fluctuations and show larger movements.
• Volume and tick charts: Useful for traders who are more focused on volume flow or overall transaction count.
Here is a condensed guide:
- ✓ Green candles and no lower shadows - -> Strong uptrend
- ✓ Red candles and no upper shadows - -> Strong downtrend
- ✓ Small bodies, with shadows - -> Indecision or warning of reversal
- ✓ Alternating colours - -> Market is in a range or sideways
- ✓ Colour flip after strong trend - -> Possible turn- confirmation first
- ✓ Always check real candlesticks for precise levels.
- ✓ Best on higher timeframes with confirmation tools.
The Heikin Ashi method gives traders a clearer picture of the market by filtering out short-term blips and showing the direction of the overall trend; instead of reacting to every jittery price movement, they can focus on overall momentum, direction, and market behaviour. This makes it particularly useful for readily identifying trends, remaining in profitable trades longer, and limiting emotional decision-making.
However, because this is a tool like any other, it has disadvantages. The smoothing effect will retard the timeliness of signals being generated and won't reflect the actual price level for clarity; therefore, it is not suitable for sole use for precise entry points or scalping price movements in very short time frames. Thus, it's best to combine the Heikin Ashi with standard candlestick charts and incorporate additional confirmation indicators, while also accounting for the need for sound risk management protocols.
Finally, the Heikin Ashi should be viewed as a tool for identifying trend clarity, not as an independent trading environment. If you use it effectively, your market interpretation will improve significantly, and you will trade with greater confidence, discipline, and consistency.
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15 min
Reading time
Intermediate
Difficulty