Candlestick formation · Bullish
What is it, in one line
A green body that completely covers the previous red body.
Bullish · 2 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A green body that completely covers the previous red 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
Two candles. The first closes lower than it opened; the second closes higher than it opened, and its real body fully covers the first body in both directions. Bodies only — the wicks are not part of the definition, and a second candle whose range engulfs the first without its body doing so does not qualify.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a bullish reversal signal, and generally said to be stronger when the engulfed body is large rather than a doji.
How this detection is wrong
The classical definition compares real bodies, not ranges, so a bar whose range engulfs the prior range but whose body does not is not an engulfing. minPriorBodyAtr exists because engulfing a doji is trivially easy and is the single largest source of inflated engulfing counts in published statistics.
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 |
| maxPriorSlope | prior slope must be below | -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.
Two candles. The first closes lower than it opened; the second closes higher than it opened, and its real body fully covers the first body in both directions. Bodies only — the wicks are not part of the definition, and a second candle whose range engulfs the first without its body doing so does not qualify. The detector also requires a prior downtrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
It is read as bullish. Traditionally read as a bullish reversal signal, and generally said to be stronger when the engulfed body is large rather than a doji.
The classical definition compares real bodies, not ranges, so a bar whose range engulfs the prior range but whose body does not is not an engulfing. minPriorBodyAtr exists because engulfing a doji is trivially easy and is the single largest source of inflated engulfing counts in published statistics.
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 below -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 downtrend, its mirror a preceding uptrend.
Bearish Engulfing: An up candle followed by a down candle whose body completely covers it.