Pattern Detail

Bullish Homing Pigeon

Two-candle bottom: a large down candle, then a smaller down candle held entirely inside the first body.

A real Bullish Homing Pigeon on NQ daily bars, Jan 22, 2008. Price then followed through 1.9% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
A real Bullish Homing Pigeon on NQ daily bars, Jan 22, 2008. Price then followed through 1.9% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
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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 lowest low 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)

42.1%

Not reliable

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 41.8% for a random long entry (+0.3 pts).

Move size vs normal

0.89×

Realized range over the next 20 bars vs a random bar. Precedes a quieter stretch.

Typical room (20-bar)

1.11R

Average run in favor (capped at 3R), vs 1.08R for a random long entry.

Summary

Offered ≥1R 42.1% of the time vs 41.8% for a random long entry. The 0.3-point gap is no bigger than the ±2.1-point margin of error you would get by chance from 2,081 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.

Room offered, this setup vs a random long entry

Outcome This setup Random entry Edge
Offered ≥ 1R 42.1% 41.8% +0.3
Offered ≥ 2R 32.5% 28.1% +4.4
Offered ≥ 3R 25.8% 19.9% +5.9
Stopped < 1R 57.9% 56.3% +1.6
Went sideways 0.0% 1.8% -1.8

2,081 occurrences · 1,150,038 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon

A bullish homing pigeon is a two-candle bottom built from two down candles. The first is a large down candle in line with the fall. The second is a smaller down candle that sits completely inside the body of the first. Both days closed lower, but the second day’s range shrank and stayed inside the first. That loss of downside force is the signal that selling is winding down.

How to spot it

  • The market is falling into the pattern.
  • The first candle is a large down (red) candle that fits the decline.
  • The second candle is also a down (red) candle, but smaller.
  • That second candle sits entirely inside the body of the first.
  • The smaller the second candle, the clearer the loss of selling force.

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

The psychology

The first candle is the decline carrying on as it has been, a large down bar that fits right into the fall. Sellers are pressing and price is dropping in step with them.

The second candle still closes lower, so on the surface the sellers got their way again. But look at its size: the whole bar fits inside the body of the one before it. The session never broke to a new low and never ran as far as the last one did. The sellers are still nominally in charge, yet they cannot push price as hard or as far as they could a bar ago. That shrinking range is the quiet part of the story. The down move is running out of fuel even while it technically continues, and the smaller the second candle, the more obvious that fade becomes.

Whether fading pressure actually flips into a bounce is the matter the figures below settle.

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 down to the pattern’s invalidation point: the lowest low 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 support 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 Bullish Homing Pigeon Firings (20)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Apr 28, 2026, 4:40 AM CDT 9.5 0.00R Stopped
Apr 24, 2026, 1:20 AM CDT 5.25 0.00R Stopped
Apr 22, 2026, 8:35 PM CDT 9.75 1.10R Ran ≥1R
Apr 21, 2026, 11:56 AM CDT 17.5 0.00R Stopped
Apr 16, 2026, 2:10 AM CDT 3.75 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Apr 10, 2026, 1:05 AM CDT 2.75 0.00R Stopped
Apr 8, 2026, 3:20 PM CDT 6.25 0.00R Stopped
Apr 7, 2026, 10:25 PM CDT 7.5 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Apr 5, 2026, 10:30 PM CDT 9.25 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Mar 31, 2026, 3:40 AM CDT 4.75 0.00R Stopped
Mar 30, 2026, 5:45 PM CDT 7.25 1.45R Ran ≥1R
Mar 29, 2026, 6:25 PM CDT 9.5 0.00R Stopped
Mar 26, 2026, 7:45 PM CDT 9.75 1.56R Ran ≥1R
Mar 24, 2026, 8:15 PM CDT 9.25 2.35R Ran ≥1R
Mar 22, 2026, 11:00 PM CDT 6.5 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Mar 18, 2026, 11:30 PM CDT 6.5 0.00R Stopped
Mar 18, 2026, 2:00 AM CDT 6.25 0.00R Stopped
Mar 17, 2026, 10:05 PM CDT 5.25 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Mar 16, 2026, 3:30 PM CDT 2.25 0.00R Stopped
Mar 13, 2026, 10:31 AM CDT 6.75 0.00R Stopped

Sample backtest

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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