Candlestick formation · Bearish
What is it, in one line
A gap up, then two red bodies filling it back in.
Bearish · 3 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A gap up, then two red bodies filling it back in. 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 candles: a long up candle, a down candle whose body gaps above it, then a second down candle that opens inside the first crow and closes back down inside the original up candle’s body. The gap is opened and then closed.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a bearish reversal — the advance gapped, failed and was retraced within two sessions.
How this detection is wrong
The only thing separating this from upside gap two crows is where the third candle closes: inside the first body here, still above it there. The gap is filled in one and survives in the other, and they are mutually exclusive.
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 |
| minPriorSlope | prior slope must be above | 1 |
| minFirstBodyAtr | first body, at least, in ATR | 0.5 |
| minGapAtr | gap between bars, at least, in ATR | 0 |
| 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 candles: a long up candle, a down candle whose body gaps above it, then a second down candle that opens inside the first crow and closes back down inside the original up candle’s body. The gap is opened and then closed. The detector also requires a prior uptrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
It is read as bearish. Traditionally read as a bearish reversal — the advance gapped, failed and was retraced within two sessions.
The only thing separating this from upside gap two crows is where the third candle closes: inside the first body here, still above it there. The gap is filled in one and survives in the other, and they are mutually exclusive.
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 above 1, first 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.