Bearish Harami Cross on a Live Gold Chart

What it shows

Each one gets a red label marked HC over the high of the doji.

How Pravex works it out

1. For the bearish harami cross, a body is the distance between open and close, and long or small is judged against a 14-candle exponential average of those bodies: above it is long, below it is small. The first 13 candles have no average yet, so no bearish harami cross is found there.
2. The bearish harami cross starts with a rising candle (close above open) whose body is long, above the average.
3. The second candle must be a doji. The bearish harami cross rule calls a candle a doji when its body is no more than 5% of its high-to-low range. Its body must sit inside the first body, edges included. Its shadows are not tested.
4. An uptrend is required for the bearish harami cross, measured on the first candle, and with the default it comes down to one comparison: is that close above the average of the last 50 closes?
5. Example numbers, not a live price: the first candle rises from 2,040 to 2,052. The doji opens at 2,049.0 and closes at 2,048.8 on a range of 5, a body of 4% of the range, inside 2,040 to 2,052.

Settings

Setting	Default	What changing it does
Trend check	SMA50	Decides what counts as an uptrend before the bearish harami cross. By default one close is read against the 50-candle average; adding the 200-candle average asks for a longer trend before the bearish harami cross, and switching the check off ignores the trend completely.
Label colour	Red (#F23645)	The fill of the HC label over the high of each candle where the bearish harami cross pattern is complete; its white text needs a colour it reads well on.

How traders read it

A long rising candle and then a complete stall. The doji shows the buyers who drove the first candle did not show up for the second. It is a pause with a lean towards the sellers, and it is a reason to tighten a stop on a long position more than a reason to sell.

A close under the first candle’s open is the usual confirmation. A close above the doji’s high and the first candle’s close means the rise carries on.

When it misleads

Quiet hours print dojis easily, so a long candle followed by a quiet hour passes and may mean nothing more than a calm hour. One close above the 50-candle average is all our uptrend test needs. In a strong rise, several of these can come and go before any top. The candle still forming is checked again on every update, so a bearish harami cross label can show up on it and vanish before the close; only a bearish harami cross label on a closed candle stays.

Questions and answers

What is a bearish harami cross?

Two candles after a rise: a long rising candle, then a doji whose body sits inside the first candle’s body.

How is it different from a bearish harami?

In a bearish harami the second candle is a small falling body. In a harami cross it is a doji.

What confirms a bearish harami cross?

A close below the first candle’s body. Until then it is only a pause.

Related: Harami Cross - Bullish, Harami - Bearish, Doji Star - Bearish, All Candlestick Patterns, every indicator.