Candlestick formation · Bullish
What is it, in one line
A small green body contained inside the previous large red body.
Bullish · 2 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A small green body contained inside the previous large 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, and the inverse containment of an engulfing: a long-bodied down candle followed by a small up candle whose body falls entirely within it. The second candle may still trade outside the first bar’s high or low — only the bodies are constrained.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a bullish reversal signal, on the reasoning that the trend has run out of range rather than that it has turned.
How this detection is wrong
The inverse containment of bullish-engulfing: here the second body sits inside the first. A harami whose second body is nearly as large as the first carries no information, which is what maxBodyRatio bounds. Containment is on bodies only — the second bar may exceed the first bar's high or low and still be a harami.
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 | 0.5 |
| maxBodyRatio | body, at most, relative to the bar before | 0.6 |
| 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, and the inverse containment of an engulfing: a long-bodied down candle followed by a small up candle whose body falls entirely within it. The second candle may still trade outside the first bar’s high or low — only the bodies are constrained. 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, on the reasoning that the trend has run out of range rather than that it has turned.
The inverse containment of bullish-engulfing: here the second body sits inside the first. A harami whose second body is nearly as large as the first carries no information, which is what maxBodyRatio bounds. Containment is on bodies only — the second bar may exceed the first bar's high or low and still be a harami.
As an executable rule over open, high, low and close, with 5 named parameters — including bars of prior trend inspected 5, prior slope must be below -1, the preceding body, at least, in ATR 0.5 — 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 Harami: A long up candle, then a small down candle contained within its body.