Pattern Detail

Bullish Separating Lines

Two-candle continuation in an uptrend: a counter down candle, then an up candle that gaps above it and resumes the climb.

A real Bullish Separating Lines on NQ daily bars, Jun 28, 2021. Price then followed through 1.3% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
A real Bullish Separating Lines on NQ daily bars, Jun 28, 2021. Price then followed through 1.3% 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 (67). 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)

16.4%

Backwards

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 41.8% for a random long entry (-25.4 pts).

Move size vs normal

1.12×

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

Typical room (20-bar)

0.58R

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

Summary

Offered at least 1R of room only 16.4% of the time vs 41.8% for a random long 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 long entry

Outcome This setup Random entry Edge
Offered ≥ 1R 16.4% 41.8% -25.4
Offered ≥ 2R 1.5% 28.0% -26.6
Offered ≥ 3R 0.0% 19.9% -19.9
Stopped < 1R 19.4% 56.4% -37.0
Went sideways 64.2% 1.8% +62.4

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

Bullish separating lines is a continuation pattern, not a reversal. The market is already rising. A counter down candle interrupts the climb and gives a moment of doubt. Then the next candle gaps up above the whole of that down candle and resumes the advance. The brief dip is rejected outright, and buyers pick the trend right back up where they left it.

How to spot it

  • The market is rising into the pattern.
  • One down (red) candle appears, a pause against the uptrend.
  • The next candle gaps up, opening above the prior close.
  • That up (green) candle’s whole range sits above the high of the down candle.
  • The cleaner the gap above the down candle, the stronger the continuation.

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

The psychology

The market is already climbing, so buyers hold the upper hand going in. The down candle is a wobble: some profit-taking, a bit of doubt, sellers trying their luck against the trend. For a bar it looks like the advance might stall.

Then the next candle gaps up above the whole of that down bar and the doubt evaporates. Buyers do not just recover the dip, they open beyond it and carry on. The sellers who leaned in on the red candle are immediately offside, with price trading above where they sold. This is not a change of control, it is the trend reloading: the side that was already winning pauses, shakes off a challenge, and presses the same direction. The cleaner the gap above the down candle, the more decisive that refusal looks.

A trend brushing off a pause is easy to like. Whether it tends to keep paying afterward is the question the figures below take up.

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 Separating Lines Firings (20)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Apr 10, 2026, 8:30 AM CDT 94 0.40R Flat
Feb 25, 2026, 8:30 AM CST 201 0.69R Flat
Feb 12, 2026, 8:30 AM CST 84.5 0.41R Stopped
Nov 26, 2025, 8:30 AM CST 161.25 0.41R Flat
Oct 28, 2025, 8:30 AM CDT 110.25 0.14R Flat
Sep 15, 2025, 8:30 AM CDT 334.25 0.21R Flat
Aug 4, 2025, 8:30 AM CDT 254.25 0.53R Flat
Feb 27, 2025, 8:30 AM CST 182 0.19R Stopped
Dec 13, 2024, 8:30 AM CST 172.75 0.54R Flat
Nov 5, 2024, 8:30 AM CST 135.75 0.82R Flat
Aug 29, 2024, 8:30 AM CDT 181 0.58R Flat
Aug 15, 2024, 8:30 AM CDT 256.75 0.59R Flat
Jun 14, 2024, 8:30 AM CDT 255 0.26R Flat
May 24, 2024, 8:30 AM CDT 97.25 1.50R Ran ≥1R
Apr 11, 2024, 8:30 AM CDT 80.5 0.09R Stopped
Mar 14, 2024, 8:30 AM CDT 315 0.07R Flat
Mar 7, 2024, 8:30 AM CST 151.25 0.61R Flat
Jan 22, 2024, 8:30 AM CST 140.75 0.08R Flat
Aug 4, 2023, 8:30 AM CDT 124.5 0.23R Stopped
Jul 24, 2023, 8:30 AM CDT 77.75 0.15R 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

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