Candlestick Patterns
Advance Block
Three green candles in a row, each closing higher than the last, can still be a warning if the bodies keep shrinking and the upper wicks keep growing underneath the surface.
Set the decay threshold, watch the bars reclassify
The chart below shows one three-candle cluster with a strength-decay bar underneath each candle, computed from that candle's real body size relative to the one before it and its upper wick relative to its own body. Drag the threshold slider to set how much decay counts as an advance block instead of a healthy advance. Every cluster in the scrolling strip reclassifies live at whatever threshold you set, and each one already shows what price actually did over the next several bars.
Loading a sample cluster...
How it works
- All three candles have to close higher than the one before. That part is identical to a healthy Three White Soldiers advance, which is exactly why advance block is easy to miss in real time.
- Body size relative to the prior candle is half the formula. Each candle's real body is compared to the previous one's, and a shrinking body counts as decay.
- Upper wick relative to the candle's own body is the other half. A growing upper wick means buyers keep pushing higher during the bar but keep getting sold into before the close, a second, independent decay signal.
- The two signals combine into one decay score per candle. That score is what the bars underneath the chart show, and it's computed the same way regardless of where the threshold slider sits.
- The threshold only changes the label, never the math. Loosen it and more clusters get called healthy. Tighten it and more get flagged. The underlying decay score for any given cluster never moves.
Where this breaks
Advance block is a weak, easy-to-misread signal even when the numbers agree with it
Advance block shows up far less often than a clean three white soldiers advance, and even when the decay conditions are genuinely met, it doesn't reliably predict an immediate reversal, usually just a pause or a shallow pullback at best. The bigger risk is misreading a normal, healthy advance as decay because the third candle happened to print a slightly smaller body on a quiet day, not because buying pressure actually weakened. This tool separates the two by computing the ratio directly instead of eyeballing it, but the threshold itself is a judgment call with no universally correct setting. Traders who treat every flagged cluster as a guaranteed short entry will get stopped out plenty of times by trends that simply kept grinding higher through the wobble.