I agree. That's not the best example of OHLC. Most applications, however, allow you to increase the thickness of the bars and color-code them for up and down Closes.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the poll and to the folks who posted comments. Of the people who selected Candlestick charts, may I ask why? I understand IShopAtPublix's beef with rudimentary OHLC stick charts. But given that most charting applications allow the user to adjust bar thickness and color-code the bars for up and down Closes, what is the additional attraction of Candlestick charts? Is it the body and tail thing?
In all honesty its not the question of which is better or worse its just what we get comfortable with. The same thing applies to intervals. Its about what you use the least effort to understand and make sense out of in real-time. Its pure habit. From the beginning I have been using candlesticks, perhaps if I would have started with using OHLC charts perhaps I would have preferred them. Of course things may be different for people using bigcharts or similar where they cannot customize the charts as much (if at all) compared to charting packages.
Sure. I use candlesticks on the daily timeframe to more easily spot reversal days. I also find they provide a nice summary of intraday action while still allowing for the big picture view. If I'm trading on the 15, 30 or 60 minute timeframe then I'm doing so to ignore the short-term swings. I'm usually looking to identify trend/nontrend and momentum. Candlesticks in this case make it easy to spot direction while filtering out noise. When it comes to the 1 or 5 minute timeframe, I'm looking to identify support and resistance. Direction is easily seen on this timeframe, so I don't need any information on this. Candlesticks emphasize the open to close range, but on this timeframe I find it meaningless. There is no useful information to be had from looking at the size of the wicks relative to the body, or the opening relative to the close on such a short timeframe. Bars clean up some of this clutter and put equal emphasis on all prices traded, just like I want it. On the weekly timeframe the open and close is arbitrarily chosen as monday and friday, so candlestick patterns I would look for on the daily timeframe lose their meaning here and just confuse me. So I just use bars.
Bars and candlesticks show exactly the same thing. Many find candlesticks easier to read. But once you are used to bar charts they are just as easy to read. So which ever you prefer. It makes absolutely no difference. The same patterns, e.g. doji, hammer, gravestone, hanging man etc. can be seen in either type chart.