Price action and candlesticks are a powerful trading concept and even research has confirmed that some candlestick patterns have a high predictive value and can produce positive returns. Especially interesting is a research paper by Gaginalp and Laurent in which they showed that the candlestick patterns:
Three White Soldiers, Three Black Crows and Three Inside Up have a significant short-term prediction value for the course of price. 1 Their research showed that those patterns are predictive about 75% of the time for most of their data sets.
Why do candlestick patterns work?
Traders often mistakenly believe that the patterns themselves drive the markets. The first important thing you have to know is that you can’t treat candlesticks like blueprint templates which is what 99% of all trading websites teach you. It’s just wrong!
Only when a trader knows how to “read candlesticks“, he will be able to understand what the patterns tell him about the underlying market dynamics, the behavior of traders, and whether buyers or sellers are in control.
The trader who can follow the path of price and who knows how to interpret the thought-process of other financial players can take advantage of this knowledge and use price action to his advantage by reading his charts like a pro
The 7 Most Powerful Bearish candlestick patterns are listed down :-
1* Shooting Star
The shooting star is a bearish reversal candlestick indicating a peak or top. It is the exact inverse version of a hammer candle. The star should form after at least three or more subsequent green candles indicating a rising price and demand. Eventually, the buyers lose patience and chase the price to new highs (of the sequence) before realizing they overpaid.
The upper shadow (also known as a wick) should generally be twice as large as the body. This indicates the last of the frenzied buyers have entered the stock just as profit takers unload their positions followed by short-sellers pushing the price down to close the candle near or below the open. This in essence, traps the late buyers who chased the price too high. Fear is at the highest point here as the very next candle should close at or under the shooting star candle, which will set off a panic selling spree as late buyers panic to get out and curb losses. The typical short-sell signal forms when the low of the following candlestick price is broken with trail stops at the high of the body or tail of the shooting star candlestick.
2* Hanging Man pattern
A hanging man candlestick looks identical to a hammer candlestick but forms at the peak of an uptrend, rather than a bottom of a downtrend. The hanging man has a small body, lower shadow that is larger than the body (preferably twice the size or more) and a very small upper shadow. It is differs from a doji since it has a body that is formed at the top of the range. For some reason, the buyers thwarted a potential shooting star and lifted the candle to close at the upper range of the candle to maintain the bullish sentiment, often times artificially. However, the truth hits when the next candle closes under the hanging man as selling accelerates.
Hanging man candles are most effective at the peak of parabolic like price spikes composed of four or more consecutive green candles. Most bearish reversal candles will form on shooting stars and doji candlesticks. Hanging man candles are uncommon as they are a sign of a large buyer that gets trapped trying to support the momentum or an attempt the paint the tape to generate more liquidity to sell into.
A hanging man candlestick signals a potential peak of an uptrend as buyers who chased the price look down and wonder why they chased the price so high. It brings to mind the old road runner cartoons where Wile E. Coyote would be chasing the Road Runner and before he knew it, he realized he overstepped the cliff when he looks down, right before he plunges.
Short-sell triggers signal when the low of the hanging man candlestick is breached with trail stops placed above the high of the hanging man candle
3* Bearish Engulfing
Like a massive tidal wave that completely engulfs an island, the bearish engulfing candlestick completely swallows the range of the preceding green candlestick. This is a strong price reversal candlestick. The bearish engulfing candlestick body eclipses the body of the prior green candle. Even stronger bearish engulfing candlesticks will have bodies that consume the full preceding candlestick including the upper and lower shadows. These candlesticks can be signs of enormous selling activity on a panic reversal from bullish to bearish sentiment.
The preceding green candle keeps unassuming buyers optimism, as it should be trading near the top of an up trend. The bearish engulfing candle will actually open up higher giving longs hope for another climb as it initially indicates more bullish sentiment. However, the sellers come in very strong and extreme fashion driving down the price through the opening level, which starts to stir some concerns with the longs. The selling intensifies as the price falls through the low of the prior close, which then starts to trigger some more panic selling as the majority of buyers from the prior day are now underwater on their shares. The selling intensifies into the candle close as almost every buyer from the prior close is now holding losses. The magnitude of the reversal is dramatic. The bearish engulfing candle is reversal candle when it forms on uptrends as it triggers more sellers the next day and so forth as the trend starts to reverse into a breakdown. The short-sell trigger forms when the next candlestick exceeds the low of the bullish engulfing candlestick. On existing downtrends, the bearish engulfing may form on a reversion bounce thereby resuming the downtrends at an accelerated pace due to the new buyers that got trapped on the bounce. As with all candlestick patterns, it is important to observe the volume especially on engulfing candles. The volume should be at least two or more times larger than the average daily trading volume to have the most impact. Algorithm programs are notorious for painting the tape at the end of the day with a mis-tick to close out with a fake engulfing candle to trap the bears.
4* Bearish Harami
The bearish harami is the inverted version of the bullish harami. The preceding engulfing candle should completely eclipse the range of the harami candle, like David versus Goliath. These form at the top of uptrends as the preceding green candle makes a new high with a large body, before the small harami candlestick forms as buying pressure gradually dissipates. Due to the gradual nature of the buying slow down, the longs assume the pullback is merely a pause before the up trend resumes.
As the bearish harami candlestick closes, the next candle closes lower which starts to concern the longs. When the low of the preceding engulfing candle broken, it triggers a panic sell-off as longs run for the exits to curtail further losses. The conventional short-sell triggers form when the low of the engulfing candle is breached and stops can be placed above the high of the harami candlestick.
5* Evening Star
The “evening star” is the small-bodied middle candle of a 3-bar pattern that can
provide an early indication of a reversal from a bullish to a bearish trend, typically
with an opening price at or a gap above the close of the previous candle
(a gap indicates space between the body of the previous candle and the open
of the consequent candle). The pattern represents a potential top, and therefore
a potential signal to sell. These are the characteristics of the three candles:
1. A long bullish candle
2. A small-bodied bullish or bearish candle or a doji that opens at or above the close of the previous candle.
3. A black candle that opens at or below the low point of the previous candle’s body and closes at or below the
center of the first candle.
In order for the pattern to be valid, the sequence of candles must be as described above.
Moreover, the pattern should appear in the context of an uptrend in order to signal a reversal and the
start of a downtrend.
6* Three Black Crows
The three black crows candle formation does not happen very frequently in stock trading, but when
it does occur swing traders should be very alert to the crow’s caw. The candlestick’s metaphor is three
crows sitting in a tall tree. On the day the first black crow makes its appearance, the formation is most
predictive if the first “crow” or dark candlestick closes below the previous candle’s real body. Two
more long-bodied consecutive down days then ensue. On each of these days, it appears as if the stock
wants to regain its former strength, as the stock opens higher than the close on the previous day. By
the end of each session, however, the sellers regain control and the stock drops to a new closing low.
7* Dark Cloud Cover
This is actually a three candlestick reversal formation where the dark cloud cover candle will actually make a new high of the uptrend sequence as it gaps above the prior candle close, but ends up closing red as sellers step in early. This indicates that longs were anxious to take proactive measure and sell their positions even as new highs were being made. Dark cloud cover candles should have bodies that close below the mid-point of the prior candlestick body. This is what distinguishes from a doji, shooting star or hanging man bearish reversal pattern. The prior candle, dark cloud candle and the following confirmation candle compose the three-candle pattern. The preceding candlesticks should be at least three consecutive green candles leading up the dark cloud cover candlestick.
The selling overwhelms and traps the new buyers. If the next candle fails to make a new high (above the dark cloud cover candlestick) then it sets up a short-sell trigger when the low of the third candlestick is breached. This opens up a trap door that indicates panic selling as longs evacuate the burning theater in a frenzied attempt to curtail losses. Short-sell signals trigger when the low of the third candle is breached, with trail stops set above the high of the dark cloud cover candle.
