Candlestick formation · Bullish
What is it, in one line
A gap up with no overlap at all between the two bodies.
Bullish · 2 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A gap up with no overlap at all between the two bodies. 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 that are each nearly all body, in opposite directions, with the second opening above the first candle’s open. The market reversed without trading through the space between them.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as one of the most abrupt reversal signals, on the reasoning that the gap leaves no one an exit.
How this detection is wrong
The gap is the whole pattern. On instruments that rarely gap — most intraday FX and crypto — this will be close to absent, and that absence is a fact about the market rather than about the definition.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| minBodyPct | body, at least, as a share of the range | 0.9 |
| minBodyAtr | body, at least, in ATR | 0.5 |
| minGapAtr | gap between bars, at least, in ATR | 0 |
| 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 that are each nearly all body, in opposite directions, with the second opening above the first candle’s open. The market reversed without trading through the space between them.
It is read as bullish. Traditionally read as one of the most abrupt reversal signals, on the reasoning that the gap leaves no one an exit.
The gap is the whole pattern. On instruments that rarely gap — most intraday FX and crypto — this will be close to absent, and that absence is a fact about the market rather than about the definition.
As an executable rule over open, high, low and close, with 4 named parameters — including body, at least, as a share of the range 0.9, body, at least, in ATR 0.5, gap between bars, at least, in ATR 0 — 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.
This formation has a mirror
Its mirror is the same construction inverted, read in the opposite direction. Everything the two rules test is the same except the sign, so the thresholds on this page apply equally to both — and a result measured for one says nothing about the other until the other is measured too.
Bearish Kicker: A bullish marubozu, then a bearish marubozu gapping below it.