Pattern Detail

Bearish Two Crows

Three-candle bearish reversal after a rally: a long up candle, then two down candles that gap up but fade back into the first candle's body.

A real Bearish Two Crows on NQ daily bars, Dec 29, 2021. Price then followed through 4.4% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
A real Bearish Two Crows on NQ daily bars, Dec 29, 2021. Price then followed through 4.4% 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.

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 3 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)

0.0%

Too few to trust

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 40.9% for a random short entry (-40.9 pts).

Move size vs normal

1.64×

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

Typical room (20-bar)

0.15R

Average run in favor (capped at 3R), vs 1.07R for a random short entry.

Summary

Offered ≥1R 0.0% of the time vs 40.9% for a random short entry. The 40.9-point gap is no bigger than the ±55.6-point margin of error you would get by chance from 3 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.

Room offered, this setup vs a random short entry

Only 3 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 0.0% 40.9% -40.9
Offered ≥ 2R 0.0% 26.8% -26.8
Offered ≥ 3R 0.0% 18.8% -18.8
Stopped < 1R 100.0% 56.5% +43.5
Went sideways 0.0% 2.7% -2.7

3 occurrences · 356,238 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon

A two crows is a three-candle top where a gap up gets sold. A long up candle extends the rise, then the next bar gaps higher but closes red. The third bar opens inside that red body and closes lower still, settling back inside the first candle’s range. The two red candles, the crows, sit above the rally and show that the higher open could not be defended.

How to spot it

  • The market is rising into the pattern.
  • The first candle is a long up (green) candle that fits the advance.
  • The second candle gaps up but closes red, a down candle floating above the first.
  • The third candle opens inside the second body and closes back down inside the first candle’s body.
  • The gap is filled and then some, leaving two red candles overhead.

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

The psychology

The long up candle extends the rally and keeps the buyers in command. The next bar gaps higher, opening above the prior close, which at first looks like the advance pressing on. But that candle closes red. Buyers reached for new highs at the open and could not hold them, and the higher ground they claimed slipped away before the session ended.

The third candle drives the point home. It opens inside that red body and closes lower still, settling back inside the first candle’s range and filling the gap that had looked so promising. Two red candles now sit overhead, marking the level where buyers tried to push on and failed. The traders who bought the gap up are offside, and as they sell to escape they hand momentum to the bears. Control passes from the buyers who led the rally to the sellers who defended the highs against them.

Whether that failed push at the top turns into a real reversal is what the figures below weigh.

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 three 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 Two Crows Firings (3)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Jul 28, 2021, 8:35 AM CDT 92.75 0.30R Stopped
Jul 20, 2021, 8:35 AM CDT 74 0.14R Stopped
Dec 17, 2008, 2:10 PM CST 4.75 0.00R Stopped

Backtest this pattern

Run it on your contracts, timeframes, and dates.