Candlestick formation · Bearish
What is it, in one line
A red body that completely covers the previous green body.
Bearish · 2 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A red body that completely covers the previous green body. The engine checks the formation as an executable condition over open, high, low and close, with a trend filter applied before the count is kept.
Method
The mirror of the bullish engulfing. The first candle closes higher than it opened; the second closes lower, and its real body fully covers the first. Again, bodies rather than ranges.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a bearish reversal signal.
How this detection is wrong
Bodies, not ranges. See bullish-engulfing — the two share every parameter and differ only in sign, which makes them the cleanest available symmetry check on the engine itself.
Published so the count can be reproduced. Every figure below is a parameter of the rule, not a preference: change one and the occurrence count changes with it.
| Parameter | Meaning | Default |
|---|---|---|
| trendPeriod | bars of prior trend inspected | 5 |
| minPriorSlope | prior slope must be above | 1 |
| minPriorBodyAtr | the preceding body, at least, in ATR | 0.3 |
| atrPeriod | bars of ATR used to size everything below | 14 |
These share enough geometry that a detector can return more than one of them on the same bar. The engine reports every match rather than picking a winner.
Every pair on the site that can be mistaken for another, and what separates each: the look-alikes index.
The mirror of the bullish engulfing. The first candle closes higher than it opened; the second closes lower, and its real body fully covers the first. Again, bodies rather than ranges. The detector also requires a prior uptrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
It is read as bearish. Traditionally read as a bearish reversal signal.
Bodies, not ranges. See bullish-engulfing — the two share every parameter and differ only in sign, which makes them the cleanest available symmetry check on the engine itself.
As an executable rule over open, high, low and close, with 4 named parameters — including bars of prior trend inspected 5, prior slope must be above 1, the preceding body, at least, in ATR 0.3 — all published on this page so the count can be reproduced. Strict and loose variants are defined as well, so the sensitivity of the count to those thresholds is visible rather than assumed.
Measurement pending re-run
No hit rate is published here yet. The run that would supply one was computed on engine ca6d9e36c81c; the engine is now cfb08765de7c. Its candlestick rows included the still-forming bar, and it predates the chart formations entirely, so those figures have been withdrawn rather than published with a caveat. The definition above is unaffected: it is what the detector tests, and no re-run changes it.
Same shape, opposite reading
The shapes are close, and the prior trend is what decides which one fired: this rule requires a preceding uptrend, its mirror a preceding downtrend.
Bullish Engulfing: A down candle followed by an up candle whose body completely covers it.