Black Spinning Top Candlestick on Live Gold

What it shows

Each one gets a grey label marked STB under the candle’s low. Pravex treats it as neutral. Its rising twin is the white spinning top.

How Pravex works it out

1. Long and small are relative for the black spinning top: the code keeps an exponential average of the last 14 bodies (open to close) and compares each body with it, so with fewer than 14 candles nothing qualifies.
2. The candle must be falling (close below open) with a small body, below the 14-candle average.
3. It must not be a doji, so the body is more than 5% of the range.
4. Both shadows must be longer than the body: the upper shadow (high minus open) and the lower shadow (close minus low).
5. Example numbers, not a live price: open 2,007, close 2,005, high 2,011, low 2,001. The body is 2, the upper shadow 4 and the lower shadow 4. It passes if 2 is below the average body.
6. No trend is tested.

Settings

Setting	Default	What changing it does
Label colour	Grey (#787B86)	The fill of the STB label under the low of each candle where the black spinning top pattern is complete; its white text needs a colour it reads well on.

How traders read it

After a rise, a black spinning top is a sign that buyers have lost pace: the candle went up, failed to hold, and closed below its open. It is still a small candle, so the usual next step is to watch for a close under its low before reading it as a turn.

After a fall it reads the other way. Sellers could not extend, and a close above the spinning top’s high puts the buyers back in the picture. In a range, the label tells you nothing you did not already know.

When it misleads

This shape is common and appears with no trend test, so many labels sit in the middle of nothing. Small is relative to the last 14 candles: after quiet hours a candle counts as small only when it is very small indeed, and after a busy stretch a fair-sized candle can pass. On the newest candle the black spinning top check reruns with every price change, so a label there can come and go until the candle closes.

Questions and answers

Is a black spinning top bearish?

Pravex marks it as neutral. The falling body is a small lean to the sellers, but the shadows on both sides show indecision, so the next candle matters more.

What is the difference between the black and white spinning top?

Only the body’s direction: the black one closed below its open, the white one above it. The size rules are the same.

Is a black spinning top a doji?

No. In Pravex a doji has a body of 5% of the range or less. A spinning top’s body is larger than that, though still below the average body.

Related: Spinning Top White, Doji, Harami - Bearish, All Candlestick Patterns, every indicator.