Candlestick Patterns
Three White Soldiers / Three Black Crows
Three strong same-direction candles in a row with small opposing wicks are a full crowd showing up, not one confident trade.
Watch the streak counter, not just the color
Bars print onto a rolling tape. The streak counter below only advances when the newest bar mechanically passes all three checks: same direction as the streak, a close beyond the prior bar's close, and a small wick on the side opposite the direction of travel. Some runs of same-color candles will not light up all three cells, and the note explains exactly why.
Advance the tape to build a streak.
How it works
- Every bar in the run has to close beyond the last one. Three green candles in a row is not enough on its own. Each new close has to sit above the prior candle's close for soldiers, or below it for crows. A green candle that closes inside the prior candle's range breaks the streak even though the color still matches.
- The opposing wick has to stay small. Soldiers need a small upper wick on each bar, since a long upper wick means sellers pushed back hard before the close. Crows need a small lower wick for the same reason in reverse. The test caps the opposing wick at roughly a third of that bar's real body.
- Body size should hold up or grow. A real three-bar run tends to keep pushing with similar or larger bodies. A run where each candle gets smaller than the last is already showing the move losing steam, even before it technically breaks.
- The naive count only checks color. The comparison tally on this page counts any three same-color candles in a row, with no check on wicks or on closing beyond the prior bar. Watching it fire on runs that the strict counter rejects is the point: color alone is a much weaker filter than it looks.
Where this breaks
The fourth candle is where this pattern gets tested, not the third
A clean three-bar run that passes every check is still just three bars of a crowd showing up in the same direction. It says nothing about what happens on the fourth. A three-soldier run that has already pushed price up several percent in three bars is frequently the exhaustion point, not the start of a bigger move, since the buyers willing to chase were mostly used up building the streak itself. The strict counter can only tell you the first three bars were mechanically real. It cannot tell you whether the crowd behind them is finished.