Candlestick formation · Neutral
What is it, in one line
Small body, wicks both sides. The most common formation in the set.
Neutral · 1 candle · verdict: rule and thresholds below
Small body, wicks both sides. The most common formation in the set. 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
A candle with a small real body — small, but not negligible — and meaningful wicks above and below it. Price travelled in both directions and settled near the middle.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as indecision, and distinguished from a doji by having a body at all.
How this detection is wrong
The lower body bound is what separates this from a doji; without it every doji is also a spinning top. The two wick minimums are what separate it from a hammer or shooting star, which have one long wick and one short one.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| minBodyPct | body, at least, as a share of the range | 0.05 |
| maxBodyPct | body, at most, as a share of the range | 0.3 |
| minWickPct | either wick, at least, as a share of the range | 0.25 |
| minRangeAtr | bar range, at least, in ATR | 0.1 |
| 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.
A candle with a small real body — small, but not negligible — and meaningful wicks above and below it. Price travelled in both directions and settled near the middle.
It is read as neutral. Traditionally read as indecision, and distinguished from a doji by having a body at all.
The lower body bound is what separates this from a doji; without it every doji is also a spinning top. The two wick minimums are what separate it from a hammer or shooting star, which have one long wick and one short one.
As an executable rule over open, high, low and close, with 5 named parameters — including body, at least, as a share of the range 0.05, body, at most, as a share of the range 0.3, either wick, at least, as a share of the range 0.25 — 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.