Pattern Detail

Bullish Three Line Strike

Four-candle shape: three rising up candles, then one big down candle that erases all three in a single bar.

A real Bullish Three Line Strike on NQ daily bars, May 12, 2020. Price then followed through 2.8% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
A real Bullish Three Line Strike on NQ daily bars, May 12, 2020. Price then followed through 2.8% 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 4 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)

35.0%

Not reliable

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 42.8% for a random long entry (-7.8 pts).

Move size vs normal

1.21×

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

Typical room (20-bar)

0.82R

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

Summary

Offered ≥1R 35.0% of the time vs 42.8% for a random long entry. The 7.8-point gap is no bigger than the ±8.3-point margin of error you would get by chance from 137 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.

Room offered, this setup vs a random long entry

Outcome This setup Random entry Edge
Offered ≥ 1R 35.0% 42.8% -7.8
Offered ≥ 2R 19.7% 26.2% -6.5
Offered ≥ 3R 16.1% 17.2% -1.2
Stopped < 1R 64.2% 51.6% +12.7
Went sideways 0.7% 5.6% -4.9

137 occurrences · 1,174,306 random-entry controls · 20-bar horizon

A bullish three line strike is a four-candle shape that looks like a reversal but often is not. Three up candles climb in a steady staircase, each opening inside the last one’s body and closing higher. Then a fourth candle drops hard and closes below where the whole run began, wiping out all three gains in one bar. Despite the violent down candle, traders read it as a continuation of the uptrend, a flush that shakes out weak hands before price moves on.

How to spot it

  • The market is rising into the pattern.
  • The first three candles are up (green) candles, each a real body, not tiny.
  • Each of those three opens inside the prior candle’s body and closes higher than the one before.
  • The fourth candle is a strong down candle that closes below the open of the first candle, erasing the whole run.
  • The cleaner the three-step climb and the deeper the final flush, the more textbook the shape.

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

The psychology

The three rising candles are an uptrend doing what it does, with buyers in control and stepping price higher one bar at a time. Each candle opening inside the last and closing above it shows a steady, orderly advance, not a panic. Going into the fourth bar, buyers own the move.

Then the big down candle hits and erases all three gains at once. That looks like sellers seizing control, but the move is usually a flush rather than a takeover. Profit-takers and short-term traders bail in a rush, and the speed of the drop scares out the weakest longs. Once that quick wave of selling clears, the supply it created is spent. The buyers who built the uptrend are still there, often happy to reload at the better price the flush just handed them. So the dominant side pauses, shakes loose the nervous money, and is positioned to press on rather than give up.

Whether the trend actually resumes after that shakeout is what the figures below weigh.

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 4 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 Line Strike Firings (20)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Apr 3, 2026, 2:46 AM CDT 4.25 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Mar 26, 2026, 6:55 PM CDT 8.25 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Mar 10, 2026, 6:05 AM CDT 7 0.00R Stopped
Feb 25, 2026, 8:00 PM CST 5.75 0.00R Stopped
Feb 19, 2026, 12:05 AM CST 6 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Feb 8, 2026, 5:25 PM CST 3.25 0.00R Stopped
Jan 27, 2026, 3:10 AM CST 12.25 1.02R Ran ≥1R
Dec 12, 2025, 12:30 AM CST 2 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Nov 6, 2025, 7:35 AM CST 13.5 0.17R Stopped
Oct 31, 2025, 3:00 AM CDT 7 0.00R Stopped
Oct 29, 2025, 3:05 PM CDT 54 1.14R Ran ≥1R
Oct 26, 2025, 10:35 PM CDT 0.75 0.00R Stopped
Sep 1, 2025, 8:15 PM CDT 4.25 0.00R Stopped
Aug 31, 2025, 7:20 PM CDT 3.25 0.00R Stopped
Aug 28, 2025, 2:55 PM CDT 1.75 0.00R Stopped
Aug 21, 2025, 9:30 AM CDT 22 0.00R Stopped
Aug 8, 2025, 4:25 AM CDT 7.25 0.48R Stopped
Aug 7, 2025, 7:45 PM CDT 6.5 0.00R Stopped
Aug 6, 2025, 6:50 AM CDT 4.5 0.00R Stopped
Aug 4, 2025, 4:05 AM CDT 10 2.02R Ran ≥1R

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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