A bearish engulfing candle signals a trend reversal on the top and points to bulls’ weakening momentum. We could wait for the third signal in more conservative trading, but the hanging man pattern was enough to determine the next price movement. We could open a trade to sell after the hanging man pattern formed or after the second bearish engulfing pattern appeared. Remember, however, that candlestick pattern cannot predict the future. Markets can be highly volatile and move against your position, so you will need to do your own research and never invest or trade with more money than you can afford to lose.

I’ve written before that, as price action traders, our job is to find clues the market leaves behind. Those clues often come in the form of candlestick patterns such as pin bars or inside bars. The bearish engulfing candle is one more clue we can use to identify a potential top in a market. Astute traders consider the overall picture when utilizing bearish engulfing patterns. For example, taking a short trade may not be wise if the uptrend is very strong.

How To Trade Forex Using The Bearish Engulfing Candlestick Pattern

Like any candlestick analysis pattern, a bearish engulfing pattern has pros and cons. A bearish engulfing candle can also be identified in securities charts, for example, in the daily chart of Tesla stocks. To learn how to read candlestick patterns, you need to firstly get familiar with them.

Our platform, its features, capabilities, and market data feeds are provided ‘as-is’ and without warranty. Notably, ‘engulfing’ can be defined in two ways, leading to some debate among traders. Some traders define an engulfing pattern when the High and Low of the second candle exceed those of the first. Others consider it engulfing when the Open and Close of the second candle surpass the Open and Close of the first. In other words, the red candle was engulfed by a large bullish candle, leading to a new upward trend. As you can see, the USD/CHF pair was in a downward trend when a smaller red (bearish) candle was followed by a bigger bullish candle.

Difference between Bullish and Bearish Engulfing Patterns

You’d be hard pushed to find a trader that didn’t try to enter a trade based off a bearish engulfing pattern at some point in their career. Whether you’re a swing trader, a day trader or even a cryptocurrency trader, there is always a place for the bearish engulf. The chart above clearly shows that bulls pushed prices above the resistance level.

For example, in the chart below, the USDCAD pair was moving lower, after which bulls came into the fold and tried to push the price higher. Understanding chart patterns forms the backbone of technical analysis for traders and investors. One such intriguing pattern is the bearish engulfing pattern, a key tool in predicting potential price reversals.

The Art of Detecting Market Tops and Bottoms

This is now a high probability trade, meaning the success rate is well above 50%. Furthermore, the setup above gave us a chance at a 3R trade (23 pip stop loss and a 68 pip profit target). During a ranging sideways movement like this, using supports and resistances to trade is a good option. The zones that we want to focus on are the ones where the price touches the moving average. Popular moving averages are the ones with 8, 20, 50, and 200 periods. Or it can be set by targeting other types of key zones, like supports and resistances.

A bearish engulfing pattern is a technical chart pattern that signals lower prices to come. The pattern consists of an up (white or green) candlestick followed by a large down (black or red) candlestick that eclipses or “engulfs” the smaller up candle. Yes, the bearish engulfing pattern can be used across various financial markets, including bullish engulfing pattern stocks, forex, and cryptocurrencies. As a technical analysis tool, it helps traders identify potential trend reversals or continuations regardless of the specific asset being traded. Increased trading volume during the formation of the bearish engulfing pattern suggests greater participation and conviction in the market’s bearish reversal.