Pattern Detail

Bullish Three Inside Up

Three-candle bottom: a bullish harami, then a third up candle that closes above the second, confirming the turn.

A real Bullish Three Inside Up on NQ daily bars, Sep 10, 2024. Price then followed through 4.5% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
A real Bullish Three Inside Up on NQ daily bars, Sep 10, 2024. Price then followed through 4.5% 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 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)

47.1%

Reliable

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 42.8% for a random long entry (+4.3 pts).

Move size vs normal

1.11×

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

Typical room (20-bar)

1.19R

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

Summary

Offered at least 1R of room 47.1% of the time vs 42.8% for a random long entry — a 4.3-point gap, wider than the ±1.0-point margin of error from chance, and it holds across the sample. A real, if modest, tendency to offer more room than the market alone.

Room offered, this setup vs a random long entry

Outcome This setup Random entry Edge
Offered ≥ 1R 47.1% 42.8% +4.3
Offered ≥ 2R 26.1% 27.3% -1.1
Offered ≥ 3R 14.6% 18.5% -3.9
Stopped < 1R 47.7% 53.6% -5.9
Went sideways 5.3% 3.6% +1.6

9,829 occurrences · 1,165,570 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon

A three inside up is a bullish harami with a confirmation candle tacked on. After a fall, a long down candle is followed by a small up candle that sits entirely inside it, the harami. Then a third up candle pushes higher and closes above the second. That follow-through is what separates this from a plain harami: the small inside candle hinted at a turn, and the third candle proves buyers have taken over.

Three inside up is the confirmed harami that Steve Nison’s Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques (1991) and later candlestick literature treat as a steadier reversal read.

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 a smaller up candle held entirely inside the first candle’s body, forming a harami.
  • The third candle is an up (green) candle.
  • That third candle closes above the second candle’s close, confirming the reversal.

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 long down candle is the sellers still pressing, closing the market lower at the bottom of a fall. Then the small up candle forms entirely inside that body, and the selling simply stops. Price holds in a tight range, and for the first time in a while the market does not make a new low. That small candle is buyers quietly absorbing the supply rather than chasing, the first crack in the sellers’ grip.

The third candle turns the hint into a fact. Price pushes up and closes above the small candle, which tells you buyers are no longer just defending, they are taking ground. The follow-through is what matters: a harami on its own only says the selling paused, but the close above it says the other side has stepped in with intent. Control has moved from sellers to buyers across the three bars.

Whether that confirmed turn carries any distance is what the numbers below check.

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 Three Inside Up Firings (20)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Apr 29, 2026, 2:50 PM CDT 33 Open
Apr 29, 2026, 1:35 AM CDT 13.25 0.60R Stopped
Apr 28, 2026, 1:55 AM CDT 15.75 0.00R Stopped
Apr 26, 2026, 6:45 PM CDT 14.5 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Apr 24, 2026, 2:45 PM CDT 17.5 1.40R Ran ≥1R
Apr 23, 2026, 2:05 PM CDT 48.5 0.94R Stopped
Apr 23, 2026, 7:55 AM CDT 52.5 1.78R Ran ≥1R
Apr 23, 2026, 6:40 AM CDT 46 2.00R Ran ≥1R
Apr 22, 2026, 8:05 AM CDT 23 2.09R Ran ≥1R
Apr 21, 2026, 11:40 PM CDT 4.75 1.11R Ran ≥1R
Apr 21, 2026, 3:51 PM CDT 32 0.69R Flat
Apr 21, 2026, 8:41 AM CDT 27.5 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Apr 21, 2026, 2:21 AM CDT 17.25 0.19R Stopped
Apr 20, 2026, 9:05 PM CDT 9.75 0.62R Stopped
Apr 19, 2026, 11:40 PM CDT 18.25 0.48R Stopped
Apr 17, 2026, 12:30 PM CDT 37.25 1.50R Ran ≥1R
Apr 16, 2026, 12:20 PM CDT 46.25 0.70R Stopped
Apr 15, 2026, 12:00 PM CDT 59.75 2.10R Ran ≥1R
Apr 15, 2026, 4:20 AM CDT 11 0.00R Stopped
Apr 14, 2026, 9:45 PM CDT 10.25 2.54R Ran ≥1R

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.

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