Candlestick formation · Bullish
What is it, in one line
A green close inside the prior body but below its midpoint.
Bullish · 2 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A green close inside the prior body but below its midpoint. 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 long down candle, then an up candle that opens below its low and closes back into the body — but below the halfway mark. That single difference is what separates it from a piercing line, and it flips the traditional reading from reversal to continuation.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a failed recovery and therefore a continuation of the decline — the same shape as a piercing line, stopped short.
How this detection is wrong
Piercing line and thrusting are the same two candles distinguished only by where the second close lands. They are mutually exclusive, and the boundary is the penetration parameter.
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 |
| minPriorBodyAtr | the preceding body, at least, in ATR | 0.5 |
| penetration | how far the close must push into the previous body | 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.
A long down candle, then an up candle that opens below its low and closes back into the body — but below the halfway mark. That single difference is what separates it from a piercing line, and it flips the traditional reading from reversal to continuation. The detector also requires a prior downtrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
It is read as bearish. Traditionally read as a failed recovery and therefore a continuation of the decline — the same shape as a piercing line, stopped short.
Piercing line and thrusting are the same two candles distinguished only by where the second close lands. They are mutually exclusive, and the boundary is the penetration parameter.
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, the preceding body, at least, in ATR 0.5 — 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.