Candlestick formation · Bearish
What is it, in one line
A doji occurring during an advance, where its indecision counts against the trend.
Bearish · 1 candle · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A doji occurring during an advance, where its indecision counts against the trend. 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
One candle whose open and close are effectively equal, appearing after a rise. Nison separates northern from southern doji precisely because a doji is a statement about balance, and balance means something different after a rise than after a fall. The shape carries no direction; the location does.
The traditional claim
Read as a warning at a top rather than a signal: indecision after an advance, and classically said to matter more the longer the advance.
How this detection is wrong
Identical in shape to `doji` and separated from it only by the trend filter, so it must never be counted alongside plain doji as though the two were independent observations — they are the same bars, partitioned.
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 |
| maxDojiPct | body small enough to count as a doji | 0.05 |
| minPriorSlope | prior slope must be above | 0.5 |
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 Northern Doji candlestick pattern?
One candle whose open and close are effectively equal, appearing after a rise. Nison separates northern from southern doji precisely because a doji is a statement about balance, and balance means something different after a rise than after a fall. The shape carries no direction; the location does. The detector also requires a prior uptrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
Is the Northern Doji bullish or bearish?
It is read as bearish. Read as a warning at a top rather than a signal: indecision after an advance, and classically said to matter more the longer the advance.
When is a Northern Doji not a Northern Doji?
Identical in shape to `doji` and separated from it only by the trend filter, so it must never be counted alongside plain doji as though the two were independent observations — they are the same bars, partitioned.
How is a Northern Doji detected?
As an executable rule over open, high, low and close, with 4 named parameters — including bars of prior trend inspected 5, bars of ATR used to size everything below 14, body small enough to count as a doji 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.
Same shape, opposite reading
These two are the same shape. Only the prior trend separates them — this one requires a preceding uptrend, the other a preceding downtrend. A detector that ignores context returns both on the same bar, which is why the prior-slope threshold is a published parameter here rather than a hidden assumption.
Southern Doji: A doji occurring during a decline, where its indecision counts against the trend.