Reliability of this candlestick pattern: High
How to Identify:
Three candles are involved in forming this pattern. On a daily chart, here's how it will unravel:
- 1st day is a bulls day (white candle)
- 2nd day is undecisive day (doji) day - here the shadows of this day are above the first day.
- 3rd is bears day (black candle) with no overlapping shadows
In the best setup - the shadows of doji should completely gap above the shadows of the first and third day.
Market Psychology:
Bulls were ruling on the first day and the second day's opening gap encourages them more - however, the Bulls having seen good profits start taking them off the market - pushing the close of the day near the open - thus forming a doji.
However, the third day open reveals that the second day was more of an indecision by the bulls to push their agenda - that gives bears the upper hand with the opening gap of the second day and thus the bears take over the market.