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Candlestick formation · Bearish

Falling Three Methods

What is it, in one line

A long red, three small green bodies inside it, then a new low.

Bearish · 5 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below

Bearish 5 candles Traditional claim
Falling Three Methods — 15 price bars ending on the bar where the Falling Three Methods completes. The last 5 bars are the formation, shaded; the bars before them are the prior context the rule requires.
Verified example · fires the Falling Three Methods rule · not a schematic

What has to be true

A long red, three small green bodies inside it, then a new low. 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.

candles = 5 candles
direction = Bearish
trend filter = prior advance
forward window = 10 bars

Method

What the engine tests

The mirror: a long down candle, three contained small candles, then a down candle closing below the first candle’s close.

Family
Candlestick
Bars
5 bars
Direction
Bearish
Class
Continuation
Prior context
Downtrend
TA-Lib
CDLRISEFALL3METHODS

The traditional claim

Traditionally read as a bearish continuation formation.

How this detection is wrong

See rising-three-methods — the same containment strictness and the same rarity.

The thresholds the detector uses

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.

Detection parameters for the Falling Three Methods
ParameterMeaningDefault
trendPeriodbars of prior trend inspected5
maxPriorSlopeprior slope must be below-1
minFirstBodyAtrfirst body, at least, in ATR0.6
maxMidBodyRatiomiddle body, at most, relative to its neighbours0.6
atrPeriodbars of ATR used to size everything below14
strict
Tighter thresholds. Fewer detections, each a cleaner example.
maxPriorSlope -1.5 · minFirstBodyAtr 1 · maxMidBodyRatio 0.4
loose
Wider thresholds. More detections, more marginal ones.
maxPriorSlope -0.5 · minFirstBodyAtr 0.3 · maxMidBodyRatio 0.8
no-context
The prior-trend requirement removed, so the shape alone fires.
maxPriorSlope not applied

Easily mistaken for

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.

Common questions

What is a Falling Three Methods candlestick pattern?

The mirror: a long down candle, three contained small candles, then a down candle closing below the first candle’s close. The detector also requires a prior downtrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.

Is the Falling Three Methods bullish or bearish?

It is read as bearish. Traditionally read as a bearish continuation formation.

When is a Falling Three Methods not a Falling Three Methods?

See rising-three-methods — the same containment strictness and the same rarity.

How is a Falling Three Methods detected?

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, first body, at least, in ATR 0.6 — 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

Rising Three Methods

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.

Rising Three Methods: A long up candle, three small pullback candles inside its range, then a new high close.

How this was measured →

Other 5-candle formations

All 107 →
Mat Hold A rising three methods where the pullback gaps up first.
Bullish Breakaway A gap down, three sliding candles, then a green close into the gap.
Bearish Breakaway A gap up, three rising candles, then a red close into the gap.
Ladder Bottom Four falling red candles, then a green candle opening with a gap.

Size a trade on this setup before you take it.