A red candle whose body completely covers the previous green candle's body, showing sellers taking control after an advance.
The mirror of bullish-engulfing: open at or above the prior close, close at or below the prior open, following a rally or occurring at resistance.
What gives it weight is the implication for positioning. Everyone who bought during the previous candle is now at a loss, and their stops sit below, which can feed a move lower.
Quality filters matter. A bearish engulfing where the red body is barely larger than the green one is noise; one where a wide-range red candle swallows three prior candles on double average volume is a real shift. Also check the higher-timeframe: a bearish engulfing on a 5-minute chart inside a strong daily uptrend is usually just a pullback starting.
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.
The parts of a candlestick. One candle sums up a slice of time: the thick real body runs from the opening price to the closing price, and the thin wicks reach out to the highest and lowest prices traded. Colour tells you which way the body ran.Support, resistance and the flip. Support is a price where buyers keep stepping in and the fall stops; resistance is a price where sellers keep stepping in and the rise stops. Once price closes above an old ceiling, that same level often acts as the new floor.
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