Vanguard FTSE Pacific just printed a doji at $104.90 after a 23% rally from its late-December lows. That alone would be worth watching. But today's session came on 23.55 million shares — over 17 times Friday's volume. That kind of volume on a candle that went absolutely nowhere? That's the market screaming and whispering at the same time.
What We're Looking At
Tuesday's candle opened at $104.89 and closed at $104.90 — a one-cent body. The session ranged from $104.05 to $105.51, so price traveled $1.46 and ended up right where it started. Friday's candle (the prior session) was a green candle with a real body of $0.66 (open $105.76, close $106.42), part of a string of sessions pushing toward the Feb 12 high of $107.13.
The Quality Check
Body-to-range ratio: $0.01 body on a $1.46 range — that's 0.68%. A textbook doji should be under 10%. This one is essentially zero.
Now the real story — volume. Today printed 23.55M shares against Friday's 1.35M. That's a 17.4x spike. As Thomsett notes in the Bloomberg Visual Guide to Candlestick Charting, "the combination of a volume spike and an NRD [narrow-range day] is among the strongest of reversal indicators."
Doji Pattern
Positioning matters too. This doji appeared after Friday's green candle. A doji after a strong up-candle at the top of a trend means buyers pushed hard but couldn't hold ground by the close.
Why This Setup Gets Attention
VPL has rallied roughly 23% from its December lows near $87 to the Feb 12 high of $107.13 — a mature move. RSI sits at 69.62, standing on overbought's doorstep. The stochastics tell the sharper story: %K at 85.31 has crossed below %D at 90.55, a bearish crossover in overbought territory.
Price remains above the 50-day SMA at $95.60, so the broader trend structure is intact. But VPL dropped $2.23 from Thursday's high to today's close on a day where volume exploded. When a trend is extended and the stochastics roll over, a doji isn't just indecision — it's the trend's first crack.
What to Watch
Bearish confirmation: A close below $104.05 (today's low) on follow-through volume would confirm the doji as a reversal signal.
Invalidation: A close above $105.51 (today's high) would suggest the indecision resolved in the bulls' favor and the doji was noise.
The Lesson
A doji's power isn't in the candle itself — it's in what surrounds it. A one-cent body means nothing in a choppy, sideways market. But a one-cent body after a 23% rally, on 17x normal volume, with stochastics crossing down from overbought? That's a completely different signal. Always read the doji in context: trend maturity, volume conviction, and indicator positioning are what separate a meaningful doji from a forgettable one.
The Candlestick Hit teaches pattern recognition through real-time market examples. This is educational content, not trading advice.