Fractiz
Pattern Detail
Bearish Ladder Top
Five-candle bearish reversal: three rising up candles, a fourth up candle with a long lower wick, then a long down candle that opens below it.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
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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 5 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)
50.0%
Too few to trust
Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 41.2% for a random short entry (+8.8 pts).
Move size vs normal
2.63×
Realized range over the next 20 bars vs a random bar. Precedes a bigger move.
Typical room (20-bar)
1.43R
Average run in favor (capped at 3R), vs 1.04R for a random short entry.
Summary
Offered ≥1R 50.0% of the time vs 41.2% for a random short entry. The 8.8-point gap is no bigger than the ±68.2-point margin of error you would get by chance from 2 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.
Room offered, this setup vs a random short entry
Only 2 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 | 50.0% | 41.2% | +8.8 |
| Offered ≥ 2R | 0.0% | 24.2% | -24.2 |
| Offered ≥ 3R | 0.0% | 15.6% | -15.6 |
| Stopped < 1R | 0.0% | 52.5% | -52.5 |
| Went sideways | 50.0% | 6.3% | +43.7 |
2 occurrences · 5,628,642 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
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 5 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)
50.0%
Too few to trust
Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 40.2% for a random short entry (+9.8 pts).
Move size vs normal
1.00×
Realized range over the next 20 bars vs a random bar. About normal.
Typical room (20-bar)
0.92R
Average run in favor (capped at 3R), vs 1.01R for a random short entry.
Summary
Offered ≥1R 50.0% of the time vs 40.2% for a random short entry. The 9.8-point gap is no bigger than the ±68.0-point margin of error you would get by chance from 2 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.
Room offered, this setup vs a random short entry
Only 2 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 | 50.0% | 40.2% | +9.8 |
| Offered ≥ 2R | 0.0% | 23.8% | -23.8 |
| Offered ≥ 3R | 0.0% | 15.4% | -15.4 |
| Stopped < 1R | 50.0% | 52.9% | -2.9 |
| Went sideways | 0.0% | 6.9% | -6.9 |
2 occurrences · 4,190,492 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
This pattern did not fire often enough on this market and timeframe to measure. Try a lower timeframe or a more active instrument.
A ladder top is an uptrend climbing one last rung before it breaks. Three up candles step higher in a row, a steady ladder. The fourth candle is up too but leaves a long lower wick, the first sign of selling pressure poking through. Then a long down candle opens below that fourth body and falls hard. The ladder gives way and the move rolls over.
How to spot it
- The market is rising into the pattern.
- The first three candles are long up (green) candles, each closing higher than the last.
- The fourth candle is up too and closes higher still, but it leaves a long lower wick.
- The fifth candle is a long down (red) candle that opens below the fourth candle’s body.
- That gap down off the top, after a clean climb, is the break.
The psychology
The first three candles are a clean ladder higher, each one closing above the last. This is a confident uptrend with buyers firmly in charge, climbing in orderly steps. Nothing here suggests trouble, which is exactly why it lulls people into trusting the move.
The fourth candle still closes higher, so on the tape the rally looks intact, but it leaves a long lower wick behind it. That tail is the first sign of selling poking through: sometime in the session price was driven well below the close before buyers rescued it. Then the fifth bar opens below that fourth body and falls hard. The gap down off the top is the rung breaking. Buyers who were comfortable a session ago are now trapped above the market, and the side that had been absent through the whole climb takes control in one decisive move.
The break shows in that long down candle. Whether a ladder that snaps like this tends to keep falling is what the figures below work out.
Does it actually work?
A pattern is a setup, not a trade, so the honest question is not “did it win” but “how much room did it tend to offer before it 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 occurrence we measure the room the move offered in units of the pattern’s own risk, then set it against what a random entry on the same market would have done. When the pattern offers more room more often than chance, that shows up as a real edge. When it does not, the page says so plainly.
Read it with the sample size in view. On the faster timeframes a pattern can fire thousands of times, enough to trust. On the daily chart it is far rarer, so treat those numbers as a hint rather than a verdict. Thin samples are flagged for you on the page.
How we measured it
- Entry is the close of the final candle of the pattern.
- One unit of risk, 1R, is the distance from that close up to the pattern’s invalidation point: the highest high of the 5 candles that form it. If price trades through there, the setup is wrong.
- We then follow the next 20 bars and record how far price ran in your favor, in multiples of that risk, before the stop was hit.
- Every figure is set against a random entry on the same market and timeframe, so the market’s own drift is accounted for.
- No profit target and no position sizing. Where you take profit is a strategy choice; this measures only the room the pattern tends to give.
What this page does not cover
- Volume on the pattern’s candles.
- Whether the pattern forms at a meaningful resistance level.
- Pairing it with a trend filter or a confirming signal.
- A profit target or position sizing. We use the pattern’s own invalidation point as the stop to define risk, but where you take profit, and how much you put on, are strategy decisions this page leaves to you.
Sample Bearish Ladder Top Firings (2)
Based on data through Apr 29, 2026
| Time | Risk (pts) | Room offered | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 17, 2008, 2:52 AM CDT | 0.45 | 0.89R | Flat |
| Sep 23, 2008, 5:39 AM CDT | 0.4 | 1.98R | Ran ≥1R |
Sample Bearish Ladder Top Firings (2)
Based on data through Apr 29, 2026
| Time | Risk (pts) | Room offered | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 22, 2021, 2:01 PM CDT | 0.011 | 0.00R | Stopped |
| Nov 6, 2009, 12:35 PM CST | 0.012 | 1.83R | Ran ≥1R |