Bullish Side By Side White Lines

Side by side white lines is a continuation pattern that confirms a climb. The market is rising. An up candle leads, then a second up candle gaps above it. The third up candle opens and closes at nearly the same levels as the second, sitting right beside it like a twin. Two matching up candles after a gap show buyers holding their ground above the gap rather than filling it, which keeps the uptrend intact.

How to spot it

• The market is rising into the pattern.
• The first candle is an up (green) candle in line with the climb.
• The second candle gaps up, its whole body above the first candle.
• The third candle is also up (green) and opens and closes at nearly the same levels as the second.
• The second and third candles sit side by side, like a matched pair above the gap.
• The tighter the third candle matches the second, the cleaner the signal.

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 market is already climbing, so buyers own the trend coming into this shape. The first up candle keeps that going. Then price gaps higher, opening above the prior candle entirely, which is buyers paying up in a hurry rather than waiting for a pullback. A gap like that often invites profit taking, and the open space below it is exactly the kind of hole that sellers like to fill.

What happens next is the point. The third candle opens and closes at almost the same levels as the second, sitting right beside it like a twin. Buyers do not push for new highs, but they do not give the gap back either. They simply hold their ground above the open air, absorbing whatever selling shows up and refusing to let price slide into the gap. This is not a change of control. It is the dominant side pausing to catch its breath, defending the new level before pressing on.

Whether that defended pause tends to lead to more upside is what the data below weighs.

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.