Pattern Detail

Bat

A deep 0.886 completion that lands close to the structure's extreme, letting a trade enter near it with a tight stop just beyond.

X A B C D
  • B = 0.382-0.5 of XA
  • C = 0.382-0.886 of AB
  • D = 1.618-2.618 of BC
  • D = 0.886 of XA
Idealized bullish Bat. It completes at a low and projects a move up.

Bullish Bat

i

How to read this

Everything here is in R, the setup's own risk. 1R is the distance from the entry (the pattern's closing price) to where it would be proven wrong — its lowest low over the 4 bars that form it. So "offered 2R" means price ran twice that distance in your favor at some point before the stop. It does not assume you took profit there: a target is a strategy choice.

Room offered (≥ 1R)

45.5%

Too few to trust

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 44.1% for a random long entry (+1.3 pts).

Move size vs normal

1.47×

Realized range over the next 20 bars vs a random bar. Precedes a bigger move.

Typical room (20-bar)

1.28R

Average run in favor (capped at 3R), vs 1.16R for a random long entry.

Summary

Offered ≥1R 45.5% of the time vs 44.1% for a random long entry. The 1.3-point gap is no bigger than the ±29.3-point margin of error you would get by chance from 11 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.

Room offered, this setup vs a random long entry

Only 11 occurrences. The breakdown below is shown in full, but a sample this small is anecdotal, a hint, not a measured edge. That is usually a limit of available history, not a flaw in the pattern. For a firmer read, try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.

Outcome This setup Random entry Edge
Offered ≥ 1R 45.5% 44.1% +1.3
Offered ≥ 2R 27.3% 24.7% +2.6
Offered ≥ 3R 18.2% 15.7% +2.5
Stopped < 1R 36.4% 42.7% -6.3
Went sideways 18.2% 13.2% +5.0

11 occurrences · 10,656 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon

Bearish Bat

i

How to read this

Everything here is in R, the setup's own risk. 1R is the distance from the entry (the pattern's closing price) to where it would be proven wrong — its highest high over the 4 bars that form it. So "offered 2R" means price ran twice that distance in your favor at some point before the stop. It does not assume you took profit there: a target is a strategy choice.

Room offered (≥ 1R)

71.4%

Too few to trust

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 43.0% for a random short entry (+28.4 pts).

Move size vs normal

1.35×

Realized range over the next 20 bars vs a random bar. Precedes a bigger move.

Typical room (20-bar)

1.76R

Average run in favor (capped at 3R), vs 1.16R for a random short entry.

Summary

Offered ≥1R 71.4% of the time vs 43.0% for a random short entry. The 28.4-point gap is no bigger than the ±36.7-point margin of error you would get by chance from 7 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.

Room offered, this setup vs a random short entry

Only 7 occurrences. The breakdown below is shown in full, but a sample this small is anecdotal, a hint, not a measured edge. That is usually a limit of available history, not a flaw in the pattern. For a firmer read, try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.

Outcome This setup Random entry Edge
Offered ≥ 1R 71.4% 43.0% +28.4
Offered ≥ 2R 57.1% 25.9% +31.3
Offered ≥ 3R 14.3% 17.0% -2.8
Stopped < 1R 14.3% 47.1% -32.8
Went sideways 14.3% 9.9% +4.4

7 occurrences · 10,573 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon

The Bat, defined by Scott Carney, is a five-point structure, X to A to B to C to D, that looks like a Gartley but completes deeper. The signature is the completion: D sits at a 0.886 retracement of the whole X-to-A leg, landing close to the origin X without quite reaching it.

How to spot it

  • A clear X-to-A trend leg, then a sequence of swings that pull back against it.
  • B is a shallow retracement, 0.382 to 0.500 of XA, C retraces 0.382 to 0.886 of AB, and D projects 1.618 to 2.618 of BC.
  • D lands at a 0.886 retracement of XA, just short of the origin X. All four ratios hold at once.
  • The structure completes at D, a swing low in an uptrend (a buy) or a swing high in a downtrend (a sell).

The chart above marks the X, A, B, C, D points on a real occurrence, with the ratio of each leg.

Why it matters

A Bat forms inside a trend. The X-to-A move is the trend leg, and everything after it is a pullback that runs deep then completes just short of the origin. D is read as the point where the pullback is spent and the original trend resumes. Because D sits so near X, the Bat lets a trade enter close to the structure’s extreme with a stop just beyond it, and the shallow B keeps the pullback from looking like a full reversal, so the Bat reads as a deep retest of a level that defends.

That places it among the retracement harmonics, alongside the Gartley, where the completion sits inside the prior move. The extension harmonics, the Butterfly and Crab, are the opposite case: D pushes past the origin, so they fade an overstretched move rather than buy a dip. The Bat is the deeper retest within the family, with the same depth cutting both ways. A break of the 0.886 level usually means a break of X, so its failures come fast and with little warning.

The honest question is not whether the shape can be drawn on a chart, it always can after the fact, but whether a completion actually leads anywhere. That is what the data below measures.

Does it actually work?

A pattern is a setup, not a trade, so the question is not “did it win” but “how much room did the move offer before the structure was proven wrong.” The tabs below answer that across five futures markets (Nasdaq, S&P 500, gold, crude oil, natural gas) and seven timeframes from one minute to one day.

For each completion we measure the room price offered in units of the pattern’s own risk, then set it against what a random swing pivot of the same kind would have done. A Bat that turns up from a swing low is judged against ordinary swing lows; one that turns down from a swing high, against ordinary swing highs. When the completion offers more room more often than those random swings, that shows up as a real edge. When it does not, the page says so plainly.

Harmonic structures are rare, so read the sample size in view. On the slower timeframes a Bat completes only single digits of times, or not at all, while the faster timeframes give a larger sample. Thin samples are flagged for you.

How we measured it

  • Entry is the close of the bar that confirms the D point, the earliest a trader could act without hindsight.
  • One unit of risk, 1R, is the distance from that close to D itself, the swing extreme the structure completes at. A move back through D says the pattern has failed.
  • We follow the next 20 bars and record how far price ran in your favor, in multiples of that risk, before D gave way.
  • The comparison is a random swing pivot of the same side, which already sits at a turning point with a tight stop. That keeps it apples-to-apples: the question is whether a Bat swing runs further than an ordinary swing of the same shape, not whether a tight stop flatters the numbers.

What this page does not cover

  • A profit target. Harmonic tradition puts one at a Fibonacci retracement, but where you take profit is a strategy choice, so this measures only the room the structure tends to offer.
  • A trend filter, or confluence with support, resistance, or a higher-timeframe level, which traders normally use to weight a completion.
  • A guarantee. A valid shape on the chart is a setup, not a certainty. What it tends to do next is exactly what the numbers above describe.

FAQ

Do harmonic patterns like the Bat actually work?

Harmonic patterns are described everywhere but rarely tested honestly. This page scores every completed Bat by the room it offered in units of its own risk, measured against random swing pivots of the same kind, and counts a pattern only on the bar its final pivot confirms, so nothing is read in hindsight. The result is a like-for-like comparison rather than the round-number success rates usually quoted for harmonics.

What is the Bat pattern success rate?

There is no single reliable figure, and the often-cited 70 to 80% numbers rarely specify instrument, timeframe, or test period, and almost never state what target and stop they assume. Rather than quote folklore, this page measures how far a completion runs in units of its own risk and whether that beats an ordinary swing of the same shape. The tabs show that comparison across five markets and seven timeframes.

How is the Bat defined here?

It is a five-point XABCD structure where B retraces 0.382 to 0.500 of XA, C retraces 0.382 to 0.886 of AB, D projects 1.618 to 2.618 of BC, and D completes at 0.886 of XA, all holding at once within a 5% tolerance. Pivots use 3 bars on each side and are confirmed before they count.

Sample Bat Completions (15)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Direction Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Feb 28, 2025 Bullish 74.5 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Jan 14, 2025 Bearish 113.25 2.15R Ran ≥1R
Sep 18, 2023 Bullish 12.25 2.10R Ran ≥1R
Sep 28, 2022 Bearish 26.5 0.55R Stopped
Sep 14, 2022 Bullish 19.5 1.59R Ran ≥1R
May 10, 2022 Bearish 60.75 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Mar 26, 2020 Bullish 203.25 0.71R Flat
Jan 15, 2020 Bullish 27.75 0.12R Stopped
Feb 18, 2019 Bearish 1.75 1.43R Ran ≥1R
Sep 12, 2012 Bearish 5.5 2.95R Ran ≥1R
Jul 20, 2012 Bullish 3 1.50R Ran ≥1R
Dec 7, 2009 Bullish 6 0.08R Stopped
Mar 24, 2009 Bearish 7.25 2.21R Ran ≥1R
Nov 3, 2008 Bullish 13.25 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Oct 7, 2008 Bullish 13 0.33R Stopped

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