Pattern Detail

Bullish Stick Sandwich

Three-candle bottom: a down candle, an up candle above it, then a down candle that closes at the exact same price as the first.

A real Bullish Stick Sandwich on NQ 15-minute bars, Nov 20, 2014. Price then followed through 0.1% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
A real Bullish Stick Sandwich on NQ 15-minute bars, Nov 20, 2014. Price then followed through 0.1% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.

Limited sample (85). 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 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)

41.2%

Not reliable

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 42.8% for a random long entry (-1.6 pts).

Move size vs normal

0.72×

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

Typical room (20-bar)

1.13R

Average run in favor (capped at 3R), vs 1.10R for a random long entry.

Summary

Offered ≥1R 41.2% of the time vs 42.8% for a random long entry. The 1.6-point gap is no bigger than the ±10.5-point margin of error you would get by chance from 85 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.

Room offered, this setup vs a random long entry

Outcome This setup Random entry Edge
Offered ≥ 1R 41.2% 42.8% -1.6
Offered ≥ 2R 37.6% 27.3% +10.4
Offered ≥ 3R 31.8% 18.5% +13.3
Stopped < 1R 58.8% 53.6% +5.2
Went sideways 0.0% 3.6% -3.6

85 occurrences · 1,165,570 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon

A stick sandwich is a three-candle bottom named for its shape. A down candle prints, then an up candle trades entirely above it, then a third down candle closes at the exact same price as the first. The two down candles are the bread, with the up candle sandwiched between. That matched closing price acts like a floor. Twice the market has tried to settle there and twice it has held, which traders read as support that may launch a bounce.

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 is an up (green) candle that trades entirely above the first candle’s close.
  • The third candle is a down candle.
  • That third candle closes at the same price as the first candle, marking a shared floor.

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

The psychology

The first down candle keeps the decline going, and sellers look settled. Then an up candle trades entirely above it, a flash of buying that on its own could be just a bounce inside a falling market.

The third candle is where the story turns. Sellers come back and push price down again, all the way to the exact level where the first candle closed. They reach the same floor a second time and stop there. Twice now the market has probed down to that price and twice it has refused to go lower. That repeated close at one level reads as a line buyers are willing to defend: sellers spend their effort getting back down there and find the same wall waiting. Control has not flipped outright, but the floor that held twice gives buyers something firm to lean on.

Whether a twice-tested floor actually launches a bounce is what the data below examines.

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 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 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 Stick Sandwich Firings (20)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Apr 20, 2026, 6:15 PM CDT 2.75 0.00R Stopped
Dec 24, 2025, 4:43 AM CST 1 0.00R Stopped
Apr 29, 2025, 11:45 PM CDT 3.5 0.00R Stopped
May 23, 2024, 12:45 AM CDT 1.25 1.40R Ran ≥1R
Aug 2, 2023, 11:45 PM CDT 8 0.00R Stopped
Jun 5, 2023, 6:35 PM CDT 1 0.00R Stopped
Oct 6, 2022, 1:25 AM CDT 3.75 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Apr 27, 2022, 7:00 PM CDT 3 1.83R Ran ≥1R
Jul 8, 2021, 11:05 PM CDT 1 0.00R Stopped
Jun 23, 2021, 9:26 PM CDT 0.75 0.00R Stopped
Jun 15, 2021, 10:01 PM CDT 1.75 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Feb 17, 2021, 6:30 PM CST 2 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Jul 29, 2020, 9:05 PM CDT 4.5 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Sep 17, 2019, 10:05 PM CDT 0.75 0.00R Stopped
Jul 17, 2019, 10:50 PM CDT 1 1.25R Ran ≥1R
Jul 14, 2019, 6:07 PM CDT Open
Sep 6, 2018, 6:36 PM CDT 1.5 0.00R Stopped
Jul 24, 2018, 11:48 PM CDT 1 0.00R Stopped
Jun 5, 2018, 5:45 PM CDT 0.25 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Mar 12, 2018, 9:27 PM CDT 0.5 0.00R 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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