Pin Bar Indicator: Formula, Settings and How to Read It
Pin Bar marks candles whose wick clearly dominates the body on one side — hammers and shooting stars — using an explicit wick-to-body ratio rather than visual judgement.
Senzoukria · Indicators · Updated September 2026
Pin Bar ships with the Senzoukria desktop app, in the Structure & sessions group of the indicator catalogue. It is drawn on the price chart.
What Pin Bar measures
The test uses body = |close − open|, range = high − low, and wicks measured from the edges of the body. A bullish pin needs its lower wick to be at least wickRatio times the body and longer than its upper wick; a bearish pin needs the mirror condition on the upper wick. With the body-in-opposite-third filter on, a bullish pin additionally needs the bottom of its body at or above the low plus two thirds of the range, and a bearish pin the top of its body at or below the low plus one third. The threshold is inclusive, so a wick exactly twice the body qualifies at ratio 2. A flat bar with zero range produces no marker, since there is no rejection to measure; a doji passes the ratio test by construction, and the third filter decides whether it is kept.
The formula, as implemented
This is not a description of how the indicator is usually defined elsewhere — it is what the shipped code computes, documented next to the implementation:
Pin bar (hammer / shooting star) — rejet marqué d'un côté du range : haussière : lowerWick ≥ wickRatio · body ET lowerWick > upperWick [et si bodyThird] bodyLow ≥ low + ⅔·range (corps dans le TIERS HAUT — le côté opposé à la mèche) baissière : upperWick ≥ wickRatio · body ET upperWick > lowerWick [et si bodyThird] bodyHigh ≤ low + ⅓·range body = |close − open| ; range = high − low ; mèches mesurées depuis le CORPS. Seuil INCLUSIF (≥) : « ratio 2 » doit attraper une mèche exactement double. Défaut wickRatio = 2 — le minimum pour que la mèche domine visuellement le corps ; 3 est le réglage « strict » habituel, laissé à l'utilisateur. La clause de mèche DOMINANTE (lowerWick > upperWick) est redondante quand bodyThird est actif (corps dans le tiers haut ⇒ lowerWick ≥ ⅔R > ⅓R ≥ upperWick) mais elle garantit l'exclusivité haussier/baissier quand l'utilisateur désactive le filtre du tiers — sans elle, une barre à corps central et deux longues mèches produirait DEUX marqueurs contradictoires. range = 0 (barre plate) → aucun marqueur : pas de rejet mesurable. body = 0 (doji) → le seuil de ratio est trivialement vrai ; c'est voulu, un doji à longue mèche EST un rejet — le filtre du tiers fait le tri.
How to read it
- A marker states that one side of the bar's range was given back before the close, nothing more; what follows is shown by the next bars, not by the shape.
- Location changes the meaning: a pin at a session extreme, a pivot or a prior VWAP describes a rejection of a known level, while one in the middle of a range usually describes noise.
- Two markers at similar prices within a short span are repeated rejection of the same area, which is more informative than any single bar.
- On a footprint chart, open the bid × ask breakdown inside the wick: a rejection with visible absorption and one without print the same candle shape.
- The shape is only settled at the close. On a bar still forming, the body and the wicks are still moving, so a marker can appear and then be withdrawn.
Parameters and defaults
Wick / body ratio defaults to 2, the lowest value at which the wick visibly dominates the body; 3 is the common strict setting and cuts the number of markers sharply, and the parameter accepts 1 to 10 in steps of 0.1. Body in opposite third is on by default; turning it off admits bars with a centred body and one long wick, and in that case the dominant-wick condition is what keeps bullish and bearish markers mutually exclusive instead of flagging the same bar twice.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wick / body ratio | number | 2 | 1 – 10 |
| Body in opposite third | toggle | true | — |
What it does not show
This is pure OHLC geometry: it knows nothing about the volume behind the wick, the delta, or which side was aggressing when the rejection happened. The shape depends entirely on where the bar boundaries fall, so the same price path on a different interval or bar type produces a different set of markers. In thin hours a single spike print can create a textbook pin with almost no trade behind it. And a rejection that is measurable is not a rejection that holds — the indicator identifies a shape, not an outcome.
Using it in Senzoukria
Add it from the Indicators panel of any footprint chart or candle chart. It runs on futures data from Rithmic or Databento and on crypto pairs from Binance and Bybit, on the same engine — the calculation does not change with the venue, only the data feeding it does. Market data subscriptions are billed by the provider, separately from the app.
Related indicators
- Session High/Low — Structure & sessions
- Opening Range — Structure & sessions
- IB Extensions — Structure & sessions
- Classic Pivots — Structure & sessions
- Camarilla Pivots — Structure & sessions
- Naked POC — Structure & sessions
See the full indicator library, or start with the order flow guide if you are new to reading aggression, delta and absorption.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a pin bar?
- A pin bar is a candle with a small body and a long wick on one side, showing that price traded well beyond the body during the interval and came back before the close. Here it is defined numerically: the wick must be at least a set multiple of the body and longer than the opposite wick.
- What wick to body ratio makes a valid pin bar?
- This indicator uses 2 by default, meaning the wick must be at least twice the body, and the comparison is inclusive so a wick exactly twice the body qualifies. Raising the ratio to 3 is the common stricter choice and produces noticeably fewer markers.
- Is a hammer the same as a pin bar?
- A hammer is the bullish case of a pin bar, with the long wick below the body, and a shooting star is the bearish case with the long wick above. This indicator detects both and distinguishes them by colour rather than treating them as separate patterns.