Candlestick formation · Bearish
What is it, in one line
A tall up candle, then several small ones, then a tall down candle — a plateau between two towers.
Bearish · 5 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A tall up candle, then several small ones, then a tall down candle — a plateau between two towers. 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. The first is a tall white body, the last a tall black body of comparable size, and the three between them are small. The shape is a flat top bracketed by two long bars: the advance stalls, goes quiet, and is then given back in a single bar.
The traditional claim
Read as a top: the market spent the quiet bars distributing, and the closing tower gives back what the opening tower gained.
How this detection is wrong
Tall and small are both measured against ATR, not against each other, so the formation cannot be satisfied by five equally mediocre bars in a quiet stretch. The middle bars are tested by their largest body — testing the mean would let one long bar hide among two doji.
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 |
| minTallAtr | the tall bar, at least, in ATR | 0.8 |
| maxSmallAtr | the small bar, at most, in ATR | 0.35 |
| 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 Tower Top candlestick pattern?
Five candles. The first is a tall white body, the last a tall black body of comparable size, and the three between them are small. The shape is a flat top bracketed by two long bars: the advance stalls, goes quiet, and is then given back in a single bar. The detector also requires a prior uptrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
Is the Tower Top bullish or bearish?
It is read as bearish. Read as a top: the market spent the quiet bars distributing, and the closing tower gives back what the opening tower gained.
When is a Tower Top not a Tower Top?
Tall and small are both measured against ATR, not against each other, so the formation cannot be satisfied by five equally mediocre bars in a quiet stretch. The middle bars are tested by their largest body — testing the mean would let one long bar hide among two doji.
How is a Tower Top detected?
As an executable rule over open, high, low and close, with 5 named parameters — including bars of prior trend inspected 5, bars of ATR used to size everything below 14, the tall bar, at least, in ATR 0.8 — 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
The shapes are close, and the prior trend is what decides which one fired: this rule requires a preceding uptrend, its mirror a preceding downtrend.
Tower Bottom: A tall down candle, then several small ones, then a tall up candle — a trough between two towers.