Is it the Japanese who came up with the Japanese candlesticks?
Of course, who else did you think? In the 1600s at that! Just as it is nowadays, at that time rice was one of Japan's staple foods. The rice market was regulated, and there were hundreds of rice dealers, which recorded the market movements with what is known today as Japanese candlesticks. After some time, a man by the name of Munehisa Homma (1724-1803) came around and became a successful trader of rice. He had noticed that the candlesticks form various patterns which depict the psychology of the market for a given period of time, and used his observation for financial gains. In 1755 he wrote the first book on market psychology. Therefore, although he did not invented candlestick charting, he is considered to be the originator of the technical analysis method that uses candlestick patterns. The Japanese candlesticks became popular in the West only in the 1990s, mostly due to broker Steve Nison, who learned about them from a fellow Japanese broker.
