Indicators: candle patterns and structure breaks

Fourteen studies that read only the aggregated OHLC of each bar: engulfing, pin bar, inside and outside bar, doji, three-bar reversal, gap open, swing high/low, break of structure, plus five pane studies describing bar structure. Markers are placed on the price chart; histograms sit in a pane.

Senzoukria · Documentation · Updated September 2026

Where to find it

Where
Chart toolbar → Indicators → group Structure & sessions
Input
Open, high, low, close of loaded bars; no volume, delta or levels
Session reset
None — a pattern is a local fact on 2–3 bars

What it does

This family turns bar geometry into markers and small histograms. Nine studies draw markers on the price chart (overlay): Engulfing, Pin Bar, Inside Bar, Outside Bar, Doji, Three Bar Reversal, Gap Open, Swing High/Low and Break of Structure. Five draw in a pane: Higher High / Lower Low (a −1/0/+1 line), Range Compression, Consecutive Bars, Bar Body % and Wick Imbalance.

Two conventions apply. Inside bar, outside bar and the swing pivots use strict inequalities on the extremes, so an equal high is a retest and not a contraction; engulfing, which compares bodies and not extremes, is inclusive, and so are the parameterised thresholds, which is why a ratio of exactly 2 is caught by a setting of 2. A bar with zero range never produces a marker or a point, because 0/0 is the absence of information, not 0 %.

Warm-up is honest: a pattern that needs a previous bar is silent on the first bar, and a swing pivot is only confirmed once its right-hand bars exist. Nothing is drawn against a bar that does not exist yet.

Settings

Parameters exposed in the Indicators panel
SettingDefaultWhat it changes
Engulfing — Bullish / Bearish colorgreen / redBody of the current bar covers the previous body; no opposite-colour requirement
Pin Bar — Wick / body ratio2 (1–10)Minimum wick length as a multiple of the body, inclusive
Pin Bar — Body in opposite thirdonRequires the body to sit in the third opposite the wick
Doji — Body / range tolerance0.1 (0–0.5)Body ≤ tolerance × range; 0 means close equals open
Gap Open — Min gap (ticks)4 (1–500)Gap between open and previous close counted in whole ticks
Swing High/Low — Bars each side3 (1–50)Pivot confirmed only after that many bars on the right
Break of Structure — Swing bars each side3 (1–50)Same pivots; a close beyond the last confirmed swing marks the break once
Range Compression — Reference period20 (1–500)Bar range divided by the mean of the previous N ranges
Inside / Outside Bar — Colorcyan / orangeSquare marker at the bar high
Three Bar Reversal — coloursgreen / redArrow on the third bar when its close clears the first bar's extreme
Consecutive Bars, Bar Body %, Wick Imbalance — coloursper studyHistogram colours for positive and negative values

How to use it

Add the study from the Indicators panel search. Marker placement is fixed by the rule: a bullish engulfing puts an arrow at the bar low and a bearish one at the high, inside and outside bars use a neutral square at the high, dojis a dot at the close, gap opens an arrow at the open, and break-of-structure arrows sit at the close that validated the break.

Higher High / Lower Low returns +1 when both extremes rise, −1 when both fall and 0 otherwise; the 0 is a measured value, not a gap. Range Compression below 1 flags a contracting bar against its recent normal and reads together with relative volume. Bar Body % near 100 is a marubozu; Wick Imbalance above 0 means rejection from above.

Limits and pitfalls

  • Gap Open needs the instrument tick size. When it is unknown, no marker is drawn rather than guessing a grid.
  • Swing pivots and break of structure appear with a delay equal to the bars-each-side setting; a provisional pivot is never shown.
  • Engulfing is a body-overlap pattern: the previous bar may be bullish, bearish or a doji. It is not the two-colour textbook reversal.
  • The shape of an open bar can still change; markers on the live bar are provisional until it closes.
  • Patterns are drawn on every timeframe, including tick, volume and range bars, where the notion of a gap open is weaker.

This page in other languages

Frequently asked questions

Why is an inside bar with an equal high not marked?
Containment is strict on both sides. An equal high or low is a test of the same extreme, not a contraction, and marking it would make the marker flicker on flat overnight series.
Can Break of Structure repaint?
No. A swing is used as reference only from the bar where it is confirmed, and the level is consumed by the first close beyond it. The marker never moves once drawn.
Do these patterns use volume or delta?
No. The family reads OHLC only. Combine them with delta or footprint cells if you need order-flow confirmation.

Keep reading

Strategy researchTest a trading strategy, from observation to challenge rulesDefine an observation, question it with the copilot, write a rule and explore costs, drawdown and fictional challenge limits in an interactive example.Quant · Start hereQuant trading for beginners: from idea to backtestDefine a testable rule, choose suitable data and evaluate later periods after costs.Order flow · HubOrder flow trading: the complete guideThe hub. What order flow is, what it shows — aggression, delta, imbalance, absorption, liquidity — and the tools that read it, each linked to a full guide.