Candlestick formation · Bearish
What is it, in one line
Opens above the prior high, then closes below the prior midpoint.
Bearish · 2 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
Opens above the prior high, then closes below the prior midpoint. 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 piercing line: a long up candle, then a candle that opens above the first candle’s high and closes back below the midpoint of the first body, but not below its open.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a bearish reversal, and weaker than a bearish engulfing for the same reason.
How this detection is wrong
Closing below the first candle’s open makes it an engulfing instead. Mutually exclusive by 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 |
|---|---|---|
| trendPeriod | bars of prior trend inspected | 5 |
| minPriorSlope | prior slope must be above | 1 |
| minPriorBodyAtr | the preceding body, at least, in ATR | 0.5 |
| penetration | how far the close must push into the previous body | 0.5 |
| 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 piercing line: a long up candle, then a candle that opens above the first candle’s high and closes back below the midpoint of the first body, but not below its open. 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, and weaker than a bearish engulfing for the same reason.
Closing below the first candle’s open makes it an engulfing instead. Mutually exclusive by definition.
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 above 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 uptrend, its mirror a preceding downtrend.
Piercing Line: A long down candle, then an up candle opening below its low and closing back through its middle.