Bat

The Pattern

The Bat, defined by Scott Carney, is a five-point structure that looks like a Gartley but completes deeper. The B point is a shallow retracement of XA, between 0.382 and 0.5, and the completion at D is a deep 0.886 retracement of XA. The C-to-D leg projects 1.618 to 2.618 of BC.

That deep completion is the Bat’s signature. D lands close to the X origin without quite reaching it.

The Idea Behind It

Because D sits so near X, the Bat lets you enter close to the structure’s extreme with a stop just beyond it. The shallow B keeps the pullback from looking like a full reversal, so the Bat reads as a deep retest of a level that holds.

When It Tends To Work

It works when the 0.886 completion coincides with a level that the market defends, and the larger trend is still pointing the original way. The tight stop makes the reward-to-risk attractive when the level holds.

When It Tends To Fail

The same depth that makes the Bat attractive makes its failures fast. A break of the 0.886 level usually means a break of X, and the structure invalidates with little warning. Shallow B points are also common in noise, so loose readings produce many low-quality Bats.

How This Strategy Trades It

On a completed Bat, the strategy enters at the close of the confirming bar, targets a 0.618 retracement of the structure, and stops just beyond D. See the Harmonic Patterns family page for the shared entry, target, and stop logic.

What The Backtest Says

The Bat fires a modest number of times and its results are mixed to negative across the samples below, with the 5-minute readings noisier than the 15-minute ones. It is a recognizable structure, but as a raw mechanical entry it does not show a consistent edge in this test.