What is the gravestone doji pattern?
The gravestone doji is a bearish candlestick pattern. Open, close and low sit together with a long upper shadow. Buyers rallied the price and sellers slammed it back down.
How to spot a gravestone doji
- 1Find a candle whose open, close and low are almost the same price.
- 2Check for a long upper shadow and little or no lower shadow.
- 3It matters most after a rally or at a resistance level.
How does the gravestone doji form?
Open, close and low sit together, with a long upper shadow. Price rallied and gave all of it back.
How do you confirm a gravestone doji?
After an advance this marks a level nobody was willing to hold. Note where the wick reached. That price is the useful part.
When does the gravestone doji fail?
In quiet conditions the same shape appears from thin trading rather than real rejection, and nothing follows.
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 gravestone doji, cut off where the pattern completed. Make your call, then see what happened.
The shaded area is a gravestone doji. Where did price go next?
Gravestone Doji: common questions
Is the gravestone doji bullish or bearish?
The gravestone doji is bearish. After an uptrend, a gravestone marks a rally that nobody was willing to hold.
How do you spot a gravestone doji?
Find a candle whose open, close and low are almost the same price. Check for a long upper shadow and little or no lower shadow. It matters most after a rally or at a resistance level.
What is the difference between the gravestone doji and the dragonfly doji?
The gravestone doji: Open, close and low sit together with a long upper shadow. Buyers rallied the price and sellers slammed it back down. The dragonfly doji: Open, close and high all sit near the same level with a long lower shadow. Sellers pushed price down and buyers recovered every bit.
How reliable is the gravestone doji?
No chart pattern works every time. In quiet conditions the same shape appears from thin trading rather than real rejection, and nothing follows. 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 gravestone doji?
Use the real charts on this page: each one stops where the gravestone doji completed, so you can make a call and then see what happened. The free Chartle app mixes the gravestone doji 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.
