Pattern Detail

Bearish Meeting Line

Two-candle bearish reversal: a down candle gaps up above a prior up candle but closes right back at the same price.

A real Bearish Meeting Line on NQ daily bars, Oct 13, 2020. Price then followed through 3.4% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
A real Bearish Meeting Line on NQ daily bars, Oct 13, 2020. Price then followed through 3.4% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.

Shown only on the markets where this pattern occurs.

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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 2 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)

45.8%

Too few to trust

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 39.7% for a random short entry (+6.1 pts).

Move size vs normal

2.09×

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

Typical room (20-bar)

1.21R

Average run in favor (capped at 3R), vs 1.04R for a random short entry.

Summary

Offered ≥1R 45.8% of the time vs 39.7% for a random short entry. The 6.1-point gap is no bigger than the ±19.6-point margin of error you would get by chance from 24 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.

Room offered, this setup vs a random short entry

Only 24 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 45.8% 39.7% +6.1
Offered ≥ 2R 29.2% 27.2% +2.0
Offered ≥ 3R 25.0% 19.7% +5.3
Stopped < 1R 54.2% 59.0% -4.9
Went sideways 0.0% 1.3% -1.3

24 occurrences · 354,524 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon

A bearish meeting line is a two-candle stall at the top. An up candle runs with the trend, then the next session gaps higher and looks bullish, before sellers drag the close all the way back to meet the first candle’s close. The two closes line up at the same level. Buyers reached higher and ended up exactly where they started, which says the advance has lost its grip.

How to spot it

  • The market is rising into the pattern.
  • The first candle is an up (green) candle.
  • The second candle gaps open above the first.
  • The second candle is a down (red) candle.
  • It closes at nearly the same price as the first candle’s close, so the two closes meet.

The dashed box on the chart above marks the 2 candles on a real occurrence, with the advance before and the move after.

The psychology

The first candle runs with the rally, so buyers end that session feeling good. The next bar opens with a gap higher, which only confirms the mood: the market looks ready to extend, and anyone short is already hurting. That gap up is the buyers at their most confident.

Then the session turns against them. Sellers take the higher open and grind price all the way back down until the close lands right on the previous candle’s close. Everything the gap promised is given back inside one bar. Buyers reached for more, got handed the early advantage, and finished exactly where the prior day ended with nothing to show for it. When the strongest-looking open of the move produces no progress, the people pressing the rally have quietly lost their grip and sellers have shown they can absorb whatever the bulls throw up.

The stall sits in those two matching closes. Whether a failed push like this tends to roll over is what the data below decides.

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 two 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 Meeting Line Firings (20)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Feb 6, 2025, 8:30 AM CST 19.75 0.63R Stopped
Jan 4, 2022, 8:30 AM CST 26.25 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Nov 1, 2021, 8:30 AM CDT 31.25 2.20R Ran ≥1R
Jul 20, 2021, 8:30 AM CDT 49.5 0.70R Stopped
Dec 22, 2020, 8:30 AM CST 34 0.23R Stopped
Mar 13, 2020, 2:05 PM CDT 35 1.36R Ran ≥1R
Jul 10, 2018, 8:30 AM CDT 13.25 0.57R Stopped
Jan 12, 2015, 11:35 AM CST 1.75 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Feb 15, 2013, 8:30 AM CST 2.25 0.00R Stopped
Jul 2, 2012, 8:30 AM CDT 5.5 0.05R Stopped
Jun 13, 2012, 9:15 AM CDT 2.75 1.82R Ran ≥1R
Nov 23, 2011, 11:55 AM CST 1 0.00R Stopped
Jul 4, 2011, 9:02 AM CDT 0.5 0.00R Stopped
May 7, 2010, 10:20 AM CDT 17 1.19R Ran ≥1R
Apr 5, 2010, 8:30 AM CDT 6 0.21R Stopped
Apr 24, 2009, 8:30 AM CDT 9.75 0.26R Stopped
Feb 25, 2009, 12:55 PM CST 2.75 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Feb 12, 2009, 2:55 PM CST 1 0.00R Stopped
Feb 10, 2009, 11:15 AM CST 2 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Jan 12, 2009, 2:05 PM CST 2 1.75R Ran ≥1R

Sample backtests (2)

Real backtested runs of this pattern, with commissions and slippage. Open one for the full equity curve and metrics, or backtest it yourself on your own contract and dates.

Backtest this pattern

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