Candlestick formation · Bullish
What is it, in one line
A rising three methods where the pullback gaps up first.
Bullish · 5 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A rising three methods where the pullback gaps up first. 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: a long up candle, then three small candles that drift lower but never close below the first candle’s low, then an up candle closing above the whole formation. Close kin to rising three methods, distinguished by the first pullback candle gapping up rather than opening inside.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a strong continuation, and often cited as more reliable than rising three methods.
How this detection is wrong
The difference from rising three methods is the gap on the second candle and the looser containment afterwards. If both fire on the same bars, the distinction is not doing any work.
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 |
| minFirstBodyAtr | first body, at least, in ATR | 0.6 |
| maxMidBodyRatio | middle body, at most, relative to its neighbours | 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.
Five candles: a long up candle, then three small candles that drift lower but never close below the first candle’s low, then an up candle closing above the whole formation. Close kin to rising three methods, distinguished by the first pullback candle gapping up rather than opening inside. The detector also requires a prior uptrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
It is read as bullish. Traditionally read as a strong continuation, and often cited as more reliable than rising three methods.
The difference from rising three methods is the gap on the second candle and the looser containment afterwards. If both fire on the same bars, the distinction is not doing any work.
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, 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.