What is the bearish engulfing pattern?
The bearish engulfing is a bearish candlestick pattern. A red body completely engulfs the previous green body after a rally. Sellers seized control in one decisive session.
How to spot a bearish engulfing
- 1Start with an uptrend ending in a green candle.
- 2The next candle is red and opens at or above the green close.
- 3Its body closes below the green candle's open, covering the whole green body.
How does the bearish engulfing form?
Price has been rising. A green bar closes, then the next bar opens at or above that close and sells off far enough to close below the previous bar's open.
How do you confirm a bearish engulfing?
Look at what came before it. The pattern says sellers took control from buyers, which only means something if buyers were in control to begin with.
When does the bearish engulfing fail?
A large engulfing bar inside a wide, choppy range is usually just the range's own noise. The same shape appears in both directions all week and none of it resolves.
No chart pattern works every time. The examples on this page were chosen because they show the pattern clearly, and in real markets patterns fail often.
Practice on real charts
3 real examples of the bearish engulfing, cut off where the pattern completed. Make your call, then see what happened.
The shaded area is a bearish engulfing. Where did price go next?
Bearish Engulfing: common questions
Is the bearish engulfing bullish or bearish?
The bearish engulfing is bearish. A bearish engulfing at a swing high is worth noticing, but like every pattern here, it fails more often than it works.
How do you spot a bearish engulfing?
Start with an uptrend ending in a green candle. The next candle is red and opens at or above the green close. Its body closes below the green candle's open, covering the whole green body.
What is the difference between the bearish engulfing and the bullish engulfing?
The bearish engulfing: A red body completely engulfs the previous green body after a rally. Sellers seized control in one decisive session. The bullish engulfing: A green body completely engulfs the previous red body after a decline. Buyers overwhelmed the sellers in one session.
How reliable is the bearish engulfing?
No chart pattern works every time. A large engulfing bar inside a wide, choppy range is usually just the range's own noise. The same shape appears in both directions all week and none of it resolves. That is why it helps to wait for confirmation and to practice on many real examples before relying on it.
How can I practice spotting the bearish engulfing?
Use the real charts on this page: each one stops where the bearish engulfing completed, so you can make a call and then see what happened. The free Chartle app mixes the bearish engulfing in with 48 other patterns in short daily sessions.
Keep learning
- Chart pattern gameGuess where price goes next on real charts, all 49 patterns mixed.
- All 49 chart patternsEvery bullish and bearish pattern, with a printable cheat sheet.
- How to read candlestick chartsBodies, wicks and colors explained from the start.
- Cheat sheet PDFAll patterns on two printable pages.
