12 March 2026 · Nicha Srisuk
Measure the lower wick before you say hammer
Students want to say the word the moment a daily bar grows a long lower tail. On our prints a hammer is stricter than that impulse. The real body is small and sits in the upper part of the range. The lower wick is at least about twice the body. The upper wick is short enough that you do not have to argue about it.
Two numbers in the margin
The desk rule is dull on purpose. Write the height of the body and the height of the lower wick before you speak. A ruler is enough. If you cannot see the difference without squinting, the bar is a small session with a tail, and it can stay unnamed for the evening.
Suppose a classroom example opened at 24.50, dipped to 23.10, and closed at 24.40, with a high of 24.60. The body is about 0.10 and the lower wick is about 1.30. That proportion earns the shape. The same close with a dip only to 24.20 falls short, because the wick is no longer doing the work the name requires.
Where the shape is sitting
A hammer after a run of lower lows is the case the room spends time on. The same silhouette after a climb is often a hanging man, and the prior swing is what changes the word. If you have not looked at the ten bars before the tail, you do not have a name yet. You have a drawing.
What to bring to the return visit
Pick ten daily bars on a chart you already follow. Measure five that look like hammers and five that merely have a lower wick. Bring the sheet with the numbers written. In the forty-minute return visit we read your arithmetic, not a fresh stack of unnamed paper.