TSX closes at 13,841 which was in a whisker of the high for the day of  13,844. When the close is at the high or near the high for the day, the candlestick is classed as having a shaven head.

The bullish white candlestick for today (Thursday) is a graphical presentation of what is logically bullish:

1. The TSX index opened above both the previous day’s (small red insignificant candlestick)  close and the close for the bullish white shaven head candlestick on Tuesday.
2. There was a small lower shadow which indicated that there was little sell-off after the open.
3. It was a relatively tall candlestick which was just a graphical representation of the 161 point (+1.18%) move in the index.
4. There was no upper shadow: in other words there was no profit taking at the top of the market.

The bulls were definitely in charge today and I now want to introduce the concept of confirming indicators. Please customize Bigcharts so that we are singing from the same page in the hymn book, and then look at the 6-month daily candlestick chart which will open in  a new window. On this chart you will notice the following:

1. You will see the bullish white candlestick where I snipped the chart for this post.
2. All three short-term simple moving averages are above each other and are moving up.
3. The close today is above all the short-term moving averages.
4. The trading volume was relatively high.  The trading volume is the fuel that lights the candlestick and should increase as the index rises.
5. The on balance volume is trending up. It should move in the direction of the price trend: if not, we have divergence and this is not good.
6. The MACD indicator, a short-term momentum indicator,  is moving up in the direction of the price trend.