How Many Candlestick Patterns Are There? (The Complete List)

Last Updated on April 18, 2023

How many candlestick patterns are there? There is most likely an unlimited number of patterns, where the minority has been labeled or given a name.

Our research indicates there are at least 75 candlestick patterns that have a formal name, see our compiled list below.

Why are candlesticks popular? Why use candlesticks?

Candlesticks are popular, despite the fact that more or less all of them leave room for personal interpretation. On the other hand, that’s perhaps precisely why candlesticks are popular?

It’s impossible to falsify a theory when you can use arguments that are hard to quantify. When there is no definite answer, you can always use anecdotal evidence to argue your case.

However, the most obvious reason why candlesticks are used is their visual appearance:

Candlesticks explained.

As soon as you get used to it, which might take some time, you get a much better and clearer look at the price action. We have been using candlesticks for decades, even though we don’t directly trade any signals based on these formations.

Why don’t we use candlesticks in our strategies?

First, some candlestick formations are hard to quantify. Second, we indirectly use some of the formations in the strategies. For example, the popular IBS indicator is quite similar to the Doji.

Third, we are in the process of writing code to more or less all the formations that we can manage to quantify. We will publish the result sometime during 2021.

However, in a preliminary test we did some months ago we got some surprisingly positive results in the 23 formations we tested:

The complete list of candlestick patterns

We have managed to compile some 75 candlestick patterns. If you are interested in their interpretation please go to this link:

Perhaps even more interesting is to find out their performance. To our knowledge there are zero backtests on candlesticks, until we did it. We quantified (with strict rules) all candlestick patterns we could find, and we defined 75 different patterns. We have the rules in Amibroker and plain English (plain English for Python trading and backtesting). We backtested all patterns on S&P 500. You can read more or order here:

How many candlestick patterns are there? We managed to find 75 different candlestick patterns that are not duplicate (see the full list below). We have quantified and backtested the following 75 candlestick patterns:

Advance Block
Bearish Abandoned Baby
Bearish Belt Hold
Bearish Engulfing
Bearish Harami
Bearish Harami Cross
Bearish In Neck Line
Bearish Kicker
Bearish Marubozu
Bearish Mat Hold
Bearish Meeting Lines
Bearish On Neck Line
Bearish Separating Lines
Bearish Side By Side
Bearish Stick Sandwich
Bearish Three Line Strike
Bearish Thrusting
Bearish TriStar Doji
Bullish Abandoned Baby
Bullish Belt Hold
Bullish Breakaway
Bullish Engulfing
Bullish Harami
Bullish Harami Cross
Bullish Hikkake
Bullish Homing Pigeon
Bullish In Neck Line
Bullish Kicker
Bullish Marubozu
Bullish Mat Hold
Bullish Meeting Lines
Bullish On Neck Line
Bullish Piercing Line
Bullish Separating Lines
Bullish Side By Side
Bullish Stick Sandwich
Bullish Three Line Strike
Bullish Thrusting
Bullish TriStar Doji
Concealing Baby Swallow
Dark Cloud Cover
Downside Tasuki Gap
Dragonfly Doji
Evening Star
Falling Three Methods
Falling Window
Four Price Doji
Gravestone Doji
Hammer
Hanging Man
Inverted Hammer
Ladder Bottom
Ladder Top
Long Legged Doji
Matching High
Matching Low
Morning Star
Neutral Doji
One Black Crow
One White Soldier
Rising Three Methods
Rising Window
Shooting Star
Spinning Top
Three Black Crows
Three Inside Down
Three Inside Up
Three Outside Down
Three Outside Up
Three Stars In The South
Three White Soldiers
Tweezer Bottom
Tweezer Top
Upside Gap Two Crows
Upside Tasuki Gap

How many candlestick patterns are there? The 75 candlestick patterns above are not the complete list – there are probably many more we are unaware of.

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  • Hello Oddmund

    Your website is the best ever! very informative and knowledge-rich that I can’t stop reading! Tank you!!
    I have a question about candlesticks, you probably heard about Volume Candles ? If so, then i guess you did even some tests on those to find if profitable and trustworthy.
    It´s possible to have volume candlestick charts on Amibroker or Tradestation?
    I´ll try to send you some pictures of volume candles so you understand what I mean.
    Can you please write some thoughts on that?
    Thank you very much Oddmund
    kind regards

    • Hi,
      Thanks for your nice comments.

      We have not yet done any research on volume candles. However, we will later publish some new material on candlesticks. But bear with us, it will take some months.

      Oddmund