Engulfing¶
Indicators · Price Action
Bullish/bearish engulfing: this bar's body fully covers the prior bar's opposite-colour body. Bull = down bar then an up bar whose body engulfs it; bear = the mirror. Exact — no size threshold.
Engulfing detects the classic two-bar reversal candle: a bar whose body fully covers the prior bar's opposite-colour body. A bullish engulfing is a down bar followed by an up bar that swallows it; a bearish engulfing is the mirror. It's one of the most-watched price-action reversal signals, delivered as two clean signals.
How it works¶
From the bars input it compares each bar's open/close body to the previous bar's. Bull fires when the prior bar closed down and the current bar closes up with a body that opens at-or-below the prior close and closes at-or-above the prior open (fully engulfing it). Bear is the exact mirror. The test is on real bodies and is exact — no minimum-size threshold. Lookahead-free.
When to use it¶
Use it as a reversal trigger at a level: an engulfing back off support/resistance, at a swing, or into a higher-timeframe zone. Raw candlestick patterns are noisy on their own, so it works best as the trigger inside a location filter — fire only when the engulfing prints where you already expected a turn.
Example¶
Reversal at support: wire bars into Engulfing, And the bull output with a "price at a demand zone" condition, and feed that into the Tester — you go long only on a bullish engulfing that prints at support.
Tips & gotchas¶
- Body-based and exact — wicks don't count, and there's no size threshold (add one with Candle Anatomy if you want "large" engulfings only).
- Two outputs — wire bull and bear separately.
- Noisy standalone — gate it by location/trend for tradeable signals.
Related blocks¶
Inputs¶
| Socket | Type | What to wire in |
|---|---|---|
| Bars | bars |
Price bars. |
Outputs¶
| Output | Type | Plots as | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bull | signal |
Signal arrows | Bullish engulfing. |
| Bear | signal |
Signal arrows | Bearish engulfing. |
Reference auto-generated from the block catalog · category Indicators.