Pattern Detail

Bullish Meeting Line

Two-candle bullish reversal: a down candle, then an up candle that gaps lower but closes at the same price as the first.

A real Bullish Meeting Line on NQ hourly bars, Dec 6, 2017. Price then followed through 0.3% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
A real Bullish Meeting Line on NQ hourly bars, Dec 6, 2017. Price then followed through 0.3% 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 (38). Directional at best.

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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)

47.4%

Not reliable

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 41.8% for a random long entry (+5.6 pts).

Move size vs normal

1.66×

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

Typical room (20-bar)

1.18R

Average run in favor (capped at 3R), vs 1.09R for a random long entry.

Summary

Offered ≥1R 47.4% of the time vs 41.8% for a random long entry. The 5.6-point gap is no bigger than the ±15.7-point margin of error you would get by chance from 38 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.

Room offered, this setup vs a random long entry

Outcome This setup Random entry Edge
Offered ≥ 1R 47.4% 41.8% +5.6
Offered ≥ 2R 31.6% 28.0% +3.5
Offered ≥ 3R 18.4% 19.9% -1.4
Stopped < 1R 52.6% 56.4% -3.8
Went sideways 0.0% 1.8% -1.8

38 occurrences · 355,242 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon

A bullish meeting line is a two-candle bottom where the two closes meet. A long down candle comes first. The next candle opens lower, gapping below the first, then rallies all the way back to close at the same level the first candle closed. Sellers pushed the open down, but buyers met them exactly at the prior close, a tug of war that ends the slide in a draw.

How to spot it

  • The market is falling into the pattern.
  • The first candle is a down (red) candle that fits the decline.
  • The second candle opens lower, gapping below the first candle’s close.
  • It rallies into an up (green) candle and closes at nearly the same price as the first candle’s close.
  • The tighter the two closes match, the cleaner the meeting.

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

Price is falling, and the first candle closes with sellers still pressing. The next session gaps lower, opening below the prior close, and the slide looks ready to extend. Then buyers turn it around and lift price all the way back to the exact level where the first candle closed. The two closes meet at the same price.

Traders read that meeting as a standoff. Sellers won the open and pushed price down, but by the end of the session buyers had matched them step for step and pulled the market back to even. Neither side ended the day with the upper hand, which after a steady decline is itself a change in tone. The selling that had been winning every session has, for the first time, only managed a draw. The tighter the two closes line up, the cleaner that balance looks, and the more it suggests the downward pressure has eased.

A draw at the lows is a hint, not a guarantee, and the numbers below weigh how often it leads somewhere.

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 Meeting Line Firings (20)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Nov 22, 2024, 8:30 AM CST 50.75 0.93R Stopped
Jul 10, 2023, 8:30 AM CDT 17.25 1.20R Ran ≥1R
Jul 28, 2022, 8:30 AM CDT 25.5 0.00R Stopped
Jul 21, 2021, 8:30 AM CDT 26 2.60R Ran ≥1R
Jun 17, 2021, 8:30 AM CDT 46 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Feb 28, 2020, 2:05 PM CST 20 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Aug 24, 2016, 8:30 AM CDT 5.5 0.68R Stopped
Mar 31, 2016, 8:30 AM CDT 5 0.00R Stopped
Dec 11, 2013, 8:30 AM CST 2.5 1.80R Ran ≥1R
Sep 9, 2011, 12:35 PM CDT 2.75 1.27R Ran ≥1R
Jun 13, 2011, 2:46 PM CDT 1.25 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Jun 10, 2011, 12:15 PM CDT 1 0.00R Stopped
May 24, 2010, 12:50 PM CDT 2.25 2.33R Ran ≥1R
Mar 9, 2010, 8:30 AM CST 5.25 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Dec 30, 2009, 8:30 AM CST 2.25 0.00R Stopped
Aug 6, 2009, 9:00 AM CDT 3.5 0.57R Stopped
May 25, 2009, 8:35 AM CDT 1 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Mar 11, 2009, 1:20 PM CDT 0.5 0.00R Stopped
Mar 6, 2009, 10:00 AM CST 4.5 2.56R Ran ≥1R
Feb 26, 2009, 1:55 PM CST 3.25 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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