Pattern Detail

Bullish Thrusting Line

Two-candle pattern: a down candle, then an up candle that gaps lower and closes up into the first body but stays below its midpoint.

A real Bullish Thrusting Line on NQ daily bars, Jun 20, 2011. Price then followed through 2.2% over the next 5 bars. The bright candles are the pattern; the dimmed bars are surrounding context.
A real Bullish Thrusting Line on NQ daily bars, Jun 20, 2011. Price then followed through 2.2% 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 (66). 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)

45.5%

Not reliable

Offered at least 1× its risk before the stop, vs 41.8% for a random long entry (+3.6 pts).

Move size vs normal

2.62×

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

Typical room (20-bar)

1.20R

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

Summary

Offered ≥1R 45.5% of the time vs 41.8% for a random long entry. The 3.6-point gap is no bigger than the ±11.9-point margin of error you would get by chance from 66 occurrences. Not a reliable edge.

Room offered, this setup vs a random long entry

Outcome This setup Random entry Edge
Offered ≥ 1R 45.5% 41.8% +3.6
Offered ≥ 2R 33.3% 28.0% +5.3
Offered ≥ 3R 24.2% 19.9% +4.4
Stopped < 1R 54.5% 56.4% -1.9
Went sideways 0.0% 1.8% -1.8

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

A bullish thrusting line is a half-hearted version of the piercing line. A long down candle comes first. The next candle gaps lower, then rallies up into the first candle’s body, but it stops short of the midpoint. Buyers pushed back into the prior loss but ran out of steam before reclaiming half of it. The thrust is real but weak, which is why this one often fails to turn the trend.

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 opens lower, gapping below the first candle’s close.
  • It closes up (green), pushing into the first candle’s body.
  • That close stays below the midpoint of the first candle’s body.
  • The closer to the midpoint it gets, the stronger the thrust.

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

The psychology

The first candle keeps the decline going, and the next one gaps lower, so sellers look firmly in charge. Then buyers wake up. Price rallies back up into the prior candle’s body, undoing part of the loss in a single bar. For a moment it reads like the start of a real fightback.

But the rally stalls before it reaches the midpoint of that down candle. Buyers found some demand, enough to lift price off the lows, yet not enough to reclaim half of what the sellers took. That shortfall is the whole story: the side trying to turn the market ran out of strength before doing real damage, and sellers still hold most of the ground they won. A push that stops halfway tends to leave the downtrend intact rather than break it.

How often that weak thrust manages to turn anything is the question the numbers below settle.

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 Thrusting Line Firings (20)

Based on data through Apr 29, 2026

Time Risk (pts) Room offered Result
Nov 22, 2024, 8:30 AM CST 50.75 0.93R Stopped
Jul 10, 2023, 8:30 AM CDT 17.25 1.20R Ran ≥1R
Jun 26, 2023, 8:30 AM CDT 39.5 2.24R Ran ≥1R
Jul 28, 2022, 8:30 AM CDT 25.5 0.00R Stopped
Jun 17, 2021, 8:30 AM CDT 46 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Mar 20, 2020, 2:50 PM CDT 63.25 0.02R Stopped
Mar 13, 2020, 10:35 AM CDT 21.5 0.00R Stopped
Mar 12, 2020, 1:13 PM CDT 26.5 0.00R Stopped
Mar 12, 2020, 10:23 AM CDT 37.25 0.11R Stopped
Jun 28, 2018, 8:30 AM CDT 16 1.42R Ran ≥1R
Dec 31, 2012, 8:30 AM CST 9 2.94R Ran ≥1R
Jun 12, 2012, 11:55 AM CDT 1.5 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Apr 16, 2012, 9:00 AM CDT 5.75 0.57R Stopped
Dec 13, 2011, 2:37 PM CST 4.75 1.11R Ran ≥1R
Dec 13, 2011, 9:30 AM CST 1.5 0.00R Stopped
Sep 30, 2011, 12:05 PM CDT 3 3.00R Ran ≥1R
Sep 5, 2011, 9:00 AM CDT 4.75 0.00R Stopped
Aug 9, 2011, 12:40 PM CDT 2.5 0.00R Stopped
Feb 23, 2011, 11:10 AM CST 3 0.00R Stopped
Feb 21, 2011, 9:40 AM CST 6 0.33R 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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