Candlestick formation · Bullish
What is it, in one line
Three shrinking red bodies with the range narrowing.
Bullish · 3 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
Three shrinking red bodies with the range narrowing. 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 that shrink as they go: the first has a long body and a long lower wick, the second is smaller with a higher low, the third smaller still and contained within the second’s range. The decline continues while running out of room.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a bullish reversal — described as one of the rarest formations in the classical set.
How this detection is wrong
Three black crows makes progressively LOWER lows; this makes progressively higher ones. The two look alike at a glance and are opposites in what they claim.
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 |
| minFirstBodyAtr | first body, at least, in ATR | 0.6 |
| minFirstLowerPct | lower wick of the first bar, at least | 0.15 |
| 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 that shrink as they go: the first has a long body and a long lower wick, the second is smaller with a higher low, the third smaller still and contained within the second’s range. The decline continues while running out of room. 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 — described as one of the rarest formations in the classical set.
Three black crows makes progressively LOWER lows; this makes progressively higher ones. The two look alike at a glance and are opposites in what they claim.
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, 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.