Hammer on 7/15

I forgot to mention this on Friday, but the daily action actually produced a fairly interesting hammer candlestick that could be read as a bullish indicator for the week to come.

After a decline (like we've seen in the 5 sessions prior to Friday 7/15), a hammer can signal a bullish revival. The shadow at the bottom indicates that sellers drove prices down during the session but that buyers took control in the end.

I'm not an expert on candlestick reading, so I did a little research. Typically a hammer requires other favorable technical indicators in order to be trusted by technical traders. In addition, expanding volume is usually needed to determine if this is really a meaningful indicator. In terms of volume, we did see slightly higher volume than in the past 4 sessions, but not so big as to be really trusted. Therefore in order for this bullish reversal to be confirmed we'd like to see some more bullish action on the first session that follows (i.e.: Monday), such as a gap up or long white candlestick.