Candlestick formation · Bearish
What is it, in one line
A rounded top of small candles that ends with a gap down.
Bearish · 5 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A rounded top of small candles that ends with a gap down. 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
Five candles of small bodies whose highs rise and then fall, tracing a dome, with the last candle black and opening a window below the one before it. The rounding is the setup and the window is the confirmation; without the window it is only a quiet patch.
The traditional claim
Read as a top, and one of the few classical formations that requires its own confirmation bar rather than leaving it to the reader.
How this detection is wrong
The falling window is mandatory. A rounded shape alone is the most subjective formation in the vocabulary and, tested without the gap, fires constantly in any quiet range.
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 |
| atrPeriod | bars of ATR used to size everything below | 14 |
| maxSmallAtr | the small bar, at most, in ATR | 0.5 |
| minGapAtr | gap between bars, at least, in ATR | 0.1 |
| minPriorSlope | prior slope must be above | 0 |
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.
What is a Dumpling Top candlestick pattern?
Five candles of small bodies whose highs rise and then fall, tracing a dome, with the last candle black and opening a window below the one before it. The rounding is the setup and the window is the confirmation; without the window it is only a quiet patch. The detector also requires a prior uptrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
Is the Dumpling Top bullish or bearish?
It is read as bearish. Read as a top, and one of the few classical formations that requires its own confirmation bar rather than leaving it to the reader.
When is a Dumpling Top not a Dumpling Top?
The falling window is mandatory. A rounded shape alone is the most subjective formation in the vocabulary and, tested without the gap, fires constantly in any quiet range.
How is a Dumpling Top detected?
As an executable rule over open, high, low and close, with 5 named parameters — including bars of prior trend inspected 5, bars of ATR used to size everything below 14, the small bar, at most, 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.