What qualifies
- Which candles: the latest daily candle and the one before it. The latest tag marks the newest candle, which may still be forming (crypto days end at 00:00 UTC).
- Trend before: the change over the 5 days before the pattern. A decline means under −2%, a rise over +2%.
- Doji: body under 10% of the high-low range. Dragonfly: almost no upper wick and a lower wick over 60% of the range. Gravestone: the reverse.
- Hammer (after a decline) and hanging man (after a rise): lower wick at least twice the body, upper wick under 15% of the range. Inverted hammer (after a decline) and shooting star (after a rise): the same, upside down.
- Bullish engulfing (after a decline): a green candle whose body opens at or below the previous red candle’s close and closes at or above its open, and is bigger. Bearish engulfing (after a rise): the reverse.
- Morning star: a big red candle (body above the 10-day average), then a small one (body under 30% of the first), then a green candle closing above the middle of the first. Evening star: the reverse.
Using candlestick patterns
Single candles say a lot about one day’s fight between buyers and sellers, and little about what happens next. They mean most at a level that already matters (support, resistance, a moving average) and when the next candle confirms them. The Body × column shows how big the candle’s body is against the last 10 days.
Patterns are found mechanically on daily candles from the data provider. Not investment advice.
Frequently asked questions
What does the quality score mean?
It’s a 0–100 score of how cleanly the pattern fits the rules above (for example, how tight the flag is, how round the cup is, or how closely the two lows match). It isn’t a probability and says nothing about what price does next. Use it to sort the list, then look at the chart: click a symbol to open it on FreeCharting.
Are these patterns reliable?
Chart patterns are a way to describe price action, not a prediction. Many fail, and they work differently in different markets. The detection is mechanical: a pattern can qualify on the numbers and still look wrong to your eye, and a pattern you’d draw by hand may miss one rule. Nothing here is investment advice.
Which markets can it scan?
Four, picked with the Market buttons above the table. Crypto (the default) scans the 250 busiest USDT pairs on Binance. Crypto perps scans the 200 busiest USDT perpetual futures on OKX. Both are free public data and need no key. US stocks scans about 600 US stocks and ETFs with your own free Alpaca key, and CME futures scans about 25 front-month CME Group contracts (stock indexes, Treasuries, oil, gas, metals, grains, livestock, currencies and CME bitcoin) with your own free Massive key.
Why do stocks and futures need a key?
Stock and futures prices are licensed data, so a website can’t hand them out for free. Alpaca (for stocks) and Massive (for futures) give anyone a free data key. Your key is saved only in your browser and sent only to that provider. See how to get a free Alpaca key and how to get a free Massive key for futures.
Is the data real-time?
Crypto and crypto perps are live from Binance and OKX, on daily candles that start at 00:00 UTC (today’s candle is still forming). Alpaca’s free stock data is 15 minutes behind the market, and Massive’s free futures plan is 8 hours delayed. Turn on auto-refresh next to the results to update the table in place every 30 seconds, minute or 5 minutes.