Pattern Detail

Bearish Separating Lines

Two-candle continuation pattern in a downtrend: an up candle is undercut by a down candle that gaps below it, and selling resumes.

A real Bearish Separating Lines on NQ daily bars, Jun 26, 2008. Price then followed through 2.2% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
A real Bearish Separating Lines on NQ daily bars, Jun 26, 2008. Price then followed through 2.2% 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.

Limited sample (80). Directional at best.

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 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)

28.7%

Backwards

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 39.7% for a random short entry (-11.0 pts).

Move size vs normal

1.36×

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

Typical room (20-bar)

0.73R

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

Summary

Offered at least 1R of room only 28.7% of the time vs 39.7% for a random short entry — it offers LESS room than chance here. On this market and timeframe the structure works against you.

Room offered, this setup vs a random short entry

Outcome This setup Random entry Edge
Offered ≥ 1R 28.7% 39.7% -11.0
Offered ≥ 2R 6.3% 27.2% -21.0
Offered ≥ 3R 1.3% 19.7% -18.5
Stopped < 1R 21.3% 59.0% -37.8
Went sideways 50.0% 1.3% +48.7

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

A bearish separating lines is a two-candle continuation, not a reversal. The market is falling, and one up candle interrupts it with a brief bounce. Then the next session gaps below that bounce and turns down again, fully separated from it. The counter move gets erased in a single gap, and the downtrend picks back up where it left off.

How to spot it

  • The market is falling into the pattern.
  • The first candle is a brief up (green) candle that bounces against the trend.
  • The second candle gaps below the first to open.
  • The second candle is a down (red) candle.
  • The whole second candle sits below the first candle, with clear separation between them.

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

The psychology

This is a continuation, not a turn. The market is already falling and sellers hold the upper hand. The single up candle is a bounce against that trend, the kind of counter rally that tempts buyers to think the bottom is in. For one session it looks like the sellers might be losing their grip.

Then the next session gaps below that bounce and opens down, undoing the counter move in a single jump, and closes lower still. The sellers did not just reappear, they reloaded and pressed harder, refusing to let the bounce build any base. The brief show of buying gets erased and the downtrend resumes from where it paused. The clean separation between the bounce and the gap below it is what makes the message stark: the trend never really yielded, it only caught its breath.

A pause that resolves back into the trend is the claim here, and the figures below test how often it holds.

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 Separating Lines Firings (20)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Mar 20, 2026, 8:30 AM CDT 196.75 0.86R Flat
Nov 14, 2025, 8:30 AM CST 460.25 0.00R Stopped
Nov 13, 2025, 8:30 AM CST 194.25 1.25R Ran ≥1R
Nov 7, 2025, 8:30 AM CST 209 1.34R Ran ≥1R
Aug 20, 2025, 8:30 AM CDT 106 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Aug 1, 2025, 8:30 AM CDT 360.75 0.59R Flat
Dec 20, 2024, 8:30 AM CST 227.5 0.19R Stopped
Dec 17, 2024, 8:30 AM CST 113.75 0.48R Flat
Jul 24, 2024, 8:30 AM CDT 349.75 0.52R Flat
May 30, 2024, 8:30 AM CDT 93.5 1.01R Ran ≥1R
Apr 19, 2024, 8:30 AM CDT 81.25 1.63R Ran ≥1R
Jan 2, 2024, 8:30 AM CST 201.75 0.73R Flat
Nov 21, 2023, 8:30 AM CST 83.5 1.08R Ran ≥1R
Nov 16, 2023, 8:30 AM CST 46.75 0.36R Stopped
Oct 25, 2023, 8:30 AM CDT 184 0.41R Flat
Sep 26, 2023, 8:30 AM CDT 119 0.80R Flat
Sep 25, 2023, 8:30 AM CDT 81.75 0.07R Stopped
Aug 14, 2023, 8:30 AM CDT 35.75 0.72R Stopped
Apr 10, 2023, 8:30 AM CDT 149.5 0.40R Flat
Feb 14, 2023, 8:30 AM CST 99.25 0.09R Stopped

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

Run it on your contracts, timeframes, and dates.