Candlestick formation · Bullish
What is it, in one line
A gap up, then a red candle that fails to close it.
Bullish · 3 candles · verdict: rule and thresholds below
A gap up, then a red candle that fails to close it. 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: an up candle, a second up candle gapping clear above it, then a down candle that opens inside the second body and closes back into the gap — but not through it. The gap survives.
The traditional claim
Traditionally read as a continuation, on the reasoning that an unfilled gap is unfinished business in the direction of the trend.
How this detection is wrong
If the third candle closes below the first candle’s high the gap is filled and this is not the pattern. That single condition is what the whole formation rests on.
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 |
| minGapAtr | gap between bars, at least, in ATR | 0 |
| minBodyAtr | body, at least, in ATR | 0.3 |
| 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: an up candle, a second up candle gapping clear above it, then a down candle that opens inside the second body and closes back into the gap — but not through it. The gap survives. The detector also requires a prior uptrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
It is read as bullish. Traditionally read as a continuation, on the reasoning that an unfilled gap is unfinished business in the direction of the trend.
If the third candle closes below the first candle’s high the gap is filled and this is not the pattern. That single condition is what the whole formation rests on.
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, gap between bars, at least, in ATR 0 — 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.
Downside Tasuki Gap: A down candle gapping below another, then an up candle that closes inside the gap without filling it.