U.S. STOCKS INCH HIGHER NOVEMBER

By Saumya Vaishampayan And Julie Wernau

Health-care shares helped U.S. stock indexes edge higher on Wednesday, the last full trading day of the week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 21 points, or 0.1%, to 17832. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.4%.

The U.S. stock market is closed Thursday for Thanksgiving Day and will close early on Friday.

Shares of Pfizer Inc. climbed 3.4% to $33.06, adding 7 points to the Dow as investors continued to digest the announcement that Pfizer and Allergan PLC had hatched a deal to combine in a $155 billion merger. Investors largely shrugged off news that Pfizer drug Lyrica had failed to reduce pain for sufferers of chronic nerve pain.

Consumer-discretionary stocks showed modest gains, up 0.3% as higher employment rates continued to translate into lackluster consumer spending.

"The data is relatively mixed," said Krishna Memani, chief investment officers at OppenheimerFunds. "I think people are happy that they have a job, but they are not happy enough or secure enough to go out and spend a lot."

Initial jobless claims fell by 12,000 to 260,000 in the week ended Nov. 21, the Labor Department said, a healthy signal for the labor market. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected 270,000 new claims. The report was released a day earlier than normal due to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Separately, consumer spending rose just slightly in October while Americans stepped up their savings. Spending inched up 0.1% in October from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said. Economists had expected a 0.3% increase in spending last month.

Dan Farley, regional investment strategist at U.S. Bank, which is overweight consumer discretionary stocks in relation to its benchmarks, said consumers may be spending less on retail but are spending more on "experiences," such as travel and home improvement.

"When you look forward to holiday sales, the data is murky," he said. "There's a lot of fire power there should the consumer want to turn around and spend."

The Stoxx Europe 600 gained 1.4%, retracing losses on Tuesday that followed reports that the Turkish military shot down a Russian jet fighter along the Syrian border.

Investors are looking past geopolitical tensions to focus on the prospect of further monetary stimulus--also known as quantitative easing, or QE--at the European Central Bank's meeting next week. Loose monetary policy has boosted stocks around the world in recent years.

"There is a strong likelihood the ECB is going to expand the QE package" and cut interest rates further, said Mike Bell, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, adding this should boost European stocks heading into year-end.

At the same time, investors continued to parse economic data and speeches from policy makers for clues on whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December for the first time in nearly a decade. Fed officials focus on employment and inflation data as they decide when to raise rates.

Inflation as measured by the price index for personal consumption expenditures, the Fed's preferred gauge, remained below the central bank's 2% annual target for the 42nd month in a row.

Still, many investors say the U.S. economy has recovered enough for the central bank to begin lifting short-term rates.

"We continue to believe there's enough growth out there that we don't need emergency-level monetary policy," said Hank Smith, chief investment officer at Haverford Trust, which manages $6.5 billion in assets.

Mr. Smith emphasized, however, that the central bank is likely to raise rates slowly, leaving monetary policy easy "for the foreseeable future." That's good for stocks, he added.

Mr. Smith said he bought shares of Exxon Mobil and Chevron in September after a pullback in the energy sector. "Oil is not going to stay low forever," he added.

In commodity markets, U.S. crude-oil futures fell 0.8% to $42.52 a barrel. Gold prices fell 0.4% to $1,069.20 an ounce.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped to 2.237% from 2.243% on Tuesday. Yields fall as prices rise.

The euro fell against the dollar Wednesday on renewed expectations that quantitative easing could be more expansive. The euro was last at $1.0631, down 0.2% on the day. Easy-money policies tend to reduce the attractiveness of a currency to investors and boost government bonds prices.

Asian markets slipped slightly. The Nikkei Stock Average fell 0.4%, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.6%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was 0.4% lower, but the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.9%.

Write to Saumya Vaishampayan at saumya.vaishampayan@wsj.com and Julie Wernau at Julie.Wernau@wsj.com 

DAIWA BRINGS A NOTE OF SKEPTICISM TO A YUAN SDR ROLE

Some investors are excited China's yuan is looking likely to be included in the IMF's basket of reserves currencies, the special drawing rights. But, what's so special about that? asks Daiwa. "We do not subscribe to the view that SDR inclusion will bring the CNY anywhere close to reserve-currency status. Neither would it create a surge in demand for the CNY or CNY-denominated assets in the short or medium term," says analyst Kevin Lai. The SDR is not a currency, nor can it circulate freely among buyers, the house reminds us. Private investors and banks do not hold or use the basket. It cannot be a reserve asset, provider of liquidity or help maintain exchange-range management. Still, Daiwa concedes, the decision to include the yuan, should it occur, would be "symbolically important for China," putting its currency in line with the U.S. dollar, British pound, the euro and the Japanese yen. (anjie.zheng@wsj.com; Twitter: @anjiezheng) 

READING CANDLE CHART

In the world of trading, in general, when people talk about the technical analysis which first comes to mind is a graph (chart). The technician usually are using the chart because it is the easiest way to visualize the data of price movements over time. You can use the help of charts to determine trends and find patterns that could potentially lead you achieve incredible opportunities.

There are three types of charts in technical analysis, which will be explained one by one.

1. Line chart 
Line chart is a graph of the simplest depicted as a line connecting the closing prices. For example: in a few consecutive days trading closed at 100, 200, 150, 250 ... the price levels are connected by a straight line. With this graph we can see the general price movement within a specific time period.

Examples are like this:

2. Bar chart 
Bar chart is slightly more complicated than the line chart. This type of chart provides information on the opening price, closing, highest and lowest prices within a certain time period. Because it has such information, this chart is also called OHLC chart (Open-High-Low-Close). The following is the basic form of a bar chart:

bar chart

The lower end of this chart is the lowest price ever traded within a specific time period, while the upper end is the highest price. The vertical lines represent the range (range) price within that time period. Small horizontal line that is left is the opening price, while that on the right is the closing price. In the above example, the opening price is lower than the closing price. However, the opening price may be higher than the closing price.

Examples bar chart in the chart is as follows:

In simple terms we can say that the bar is a period of time, whether it be one month, one week, one day, one hour, or even minute. Depending on the time frame of how long we plot the chart.

3. Candlestick chart 
Named "candlestick" because it looks like with a candle. His full name is "Japanese canclestick chart", because it is said he was from the country Sakura.This type of chart provides exactly the same information with a bar chart, only "posture" the body more "sexy".

candlestick chart

Normally, the body of the candlestick chart is white and black. If his body is white then open its prices are below, otherwise if the black body is above the open price. So, the body itself describes the distance between the opening price at closing within a specific time period.

If the open price below the price closes, then commonly called a bull candle. In technical analysis, the term "bull" or "bullish" is used to describe the movement of price rises. To illustrate the movement of prices down, used the term "bear" or "bearish", resulting candlestick has open price above the close price is called bear candle. Use only "mnemonics" This is so much easier to remember: BULL = rose, BEAR = down ,

But if you consider black and white is less "stylish", or lack of interest to you, then you can replace it with the color you like. Other color combinations are often used example is the red to the blue bear to bull candle and candle. Remember, you'll spend more time observing the chart, so that the colors that appeal to you will help relieve boredom. The important thing, you know how to differentiate between a bull candle with bear candle.

Let's see an example of a candlestick following:

How, more interesting is not it? Or you have another color choice? Please express "color" you. Many traders prefer to use this type of chart because it helps visually to recognize the open, close, high and low than bar charts.

Below is an example of the graphical display of price movements using a candlestick chart: