Candlestick formation · Bullish
What is it, in one line
A small red body contained inside a larger red body.
Bullish · 2 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A small red body contained inside a larger 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 down candles where the second body sits wholly within the first. Structurally a harami, except that the second candle is also a down candle rather than an up one — the decline continues, but on a much reduced range.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a bullish reversal despite both candles being down candles, on the reasoning that selling pressure visibly contracted.
How this detection is wrong
A bullish harami requires the second candle to close up; a homing pigeon requires it to close down. The two are mutually exclusive, and a pattern set that reports only harami misses every one of these.
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 down candles where the second body sits wholly within the first. Structurally a harami, except that the second candle is also a down candle rather than an up one — the decline continues, but on a much reduced range. 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 despite both candles being down candles, on the reasoning that selling pressure visibly contracted.
A bullish harami requires the second candle to close up; a homing pigeon requires it to close down. The two are mutually exclusive, and a pattern set that reports only harami misses every one of these.
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.