Candlestick formation · Bearish
What is it, in one line
Three red bodies, each opening at the previous close.
Bearish · 3 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
Three red bodies, each opening at the previous close. 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
Three consecutive down candles, each closing lower, and each opening at the previous candle’s close rather than inside its body. The decline is continuous with no overnight recovery at all.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a more severe three black crows, on the reasoning that there was never a bid to open higher.
How this detection is wrong
Three black crows requires each open to sit inside the previous body; this requires it to sit at the previous close. The two are close but not nested — a crow opening mid-body is not identical.
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 |
| matchTolAtr | how closely two levels must match, in ATR | 0.05 |
| minBodyAtr | body, at least, in ATR | 0.3 |
| 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.
Three consecutive down candles, each closing lower, and each opening at the previous candle’s close rather than inside its body. The decline is continuous with no overnight recovery at all. 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 more severe three black crows, on the reasoning that there was never a bid to open higher.
Three black crows requires each open to sit inside the previous body; this requires it to sit at the previous close. The two are close but not nested — a crow opening mid-body is not identical.
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, how closely two levels must match, in ATR 0.05 — 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.