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Bearish Engulfing pattern

A red candle that swallows the previous green one — buyers' progress wiped out in a single session, most telling at resistance.

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How a bearish engulfing must look

The anatomy that has to be present before the label applies — structure, the trigger line, and where the measured-move target comes from.

Bearish engulfing — one red body swallows the prior green body
Resistance — location is the edgePrior bodyEngulfing closeFollow-throughStop: engulfing highBody covers theentire prior body

Coins printing a bearish engulfing now

Detected live by our screener across the top-100, with a confidence score per coin. No tracked coin is currently flagged — patterns are rarer than indicator states, so check back or open the screener.

Nothing printing this pattern at the moment. Markets move fast — open the screener to scan every pattern live, or browse other patterns.

Does the bearish engulfing actually work?

We re-ran our live pattern detector across 28 coins and 5.0 years of daily history, grading every single occurrence by the price move 10 days later. No cherry-picked examples — this is every time the detector fired.

Win rate
10%

of occurrences moved in the pattern's favour within 10 days

Avg move
-6.9%

mean favourable return per occurrence (10 graded)

Coverage
8

coins this pattern appeared on

“Win” = price moved in the pattern's favour (down) over the following 10 daily bars. Historical back-test of a mechanical detector — no fees or slippage modelled, and past performance doesn't predict the future. See our methodology and the full signal track record.

What is a bearish engulfing?

A bearish engulfing is the mirror of the bullish version: a green (up) candle is followed by a red (down) candle whose body completely engulfs it. Buyers had control; one session later sellers erased the entire advance and closed below its start.

At a rally high the pattern is a footprint of distribution — demand pushed price up, and supply absorbed all of it and more. Late longs from the green candle are immediately underwater, and their stops below feed the follow-through.

As with all candlestick signals, location does the heavy lifting: a bearish engulfing into resistance, after a parabolic run, or at a lower high inside a downtrend is meaningful; one inside quiet chop is not.

How it forms, phase by phase

  1. 1

    Upward push

    An advancing sequence ends in a green candle — ideally into known resistance or after an extended, stretched run.

  2. 2

    The engulfing open

    The next candle opens at or above the prior close; longs feel confirmed and momentum chasers enter.

  3. 3

    The reversal close

    Sellers drive price down through the entire previous body, closing below its open. The whole prior session's gains are gone in one bar.

  4. 4

    Confirmation

    A lower close in the following bars — or failure to reclaim the engulfing candle's midpoint — confirms the supply is real.

How traders trade it

  • 1Treat it as a fade-the-rally signal at resistance, a take-profits cue after extended runs, and a lower-high confirmation in downtrends — three contexts, one pattern.
  • 2Invalidate above the engulfing candle's high: if buyers reclaim that level, the supply that printed the bar has been absorbed.
  • 3Volume on the engulfing bar separates institutional selling from noise.
  • 4For spot holders, a high-volume bearish engulfing at major resistance is one of the cleaner 'tighten your stops' signals a chart can print.

The target calculation

No measured move — candlestick patterns define risk. Risk unit = engulfing candle high − entry. Targets sit at the next support or at multiples of the risk unit.

Worked example

  1. 1.A coin rallies to $3,400 resistance and prints a green candle, then a red candle opens at $3,390 and closes at $3,180, engulfing the prior body.
  2. 2.Short entry near $3,180; the engulfing high is $3,420.
  3. 3.Risk unit: $3,420 − $3,180 = $240.
  4. 4.First support at $2,900 offers a $280 move — roughly 1.2R; deeper supports define the runner target.

Bearish Engulfing: key facts

  • Body-engulfs-body is the requirement; engulfing the prior candle's full range including wicks is the stronger variant.
  • At resistance after a multi-week rally, the pattern frequently marks the exact swing high — that is where it earned its reputation.
  • An engulfing bar that also closes below a key moving average compounds two signals into one.
  • In strong uptrends, isolated bearish engulfing bars are routinely bought — regime context decides how much weight the signal deserves.
  • Its bullish mirror is the bullish engulfing at support.

What it doesn't tell you

Bear signals in bull regimes underperform — a single red candle, however dramatic, is often just a pause in a trending crypto market. The pattern needs resistance, stretched momentum, or a confirmed downtrend behind it, and a mechanical invalidation above the bar's high to stay honest.

Bearish Engulfing FAQ

What does a bearish engulfing candle mean?
A red candle whose body completely covers the previous green candle's body — sellers erased the entire prior advance in one session. At resistance or after an extended rally it signals a potential reversal lower; its reliability depends on that context.
Should I sell when I see a bearish engulfing?
Not automatically. In a strong uptrend, isolated bearish engulfing bars frequently get bought. The signal is strongest at meaningful resistance on elevated volume — and even then it pairs best with risk management (tightened stops, partial profits) rather than panic exits. This is educational information, not financial advice.
What confirms a bearish engulfing pattern?
Follow-through: a lower close in the next bar or two, failure to reclaim the engulfing candle's midpoint, expanding volume on the down moves, and ideally momentum rolling over (e.g. a MACD bearish cross). A close back above the engulfing high cancels the signal.

Test yourself

0/3 answered

  1. 1. A bearish engulfing prints at major resistance after a multi-week rally. What did the market just record?

  2. 2. In a strong bull regime, how should an isolated bearish engulfing be weighted?

  3. 3. What cancels a bearish engulfing signal?

Keep learning

Patterns that trade alongside the bearish engulfing — same discipline, different shape.

bullishcandlestick

Bullish Engulfing

A green candle that swallows the previous red one whole — a single-bar shift from sellers to buyers, most powerful at support.

Read the pattern
bearishreversal

Double Top

Price tests the same high twice and fails both times — an 'M' shape that marks supply sitting on the market.

Read the pattern
bearishreversal

Rising Wedge

Price grinds higher inside converging trendlines while momentum fades — an uptrend running on fumes that usually resolves downward.

Read the pattern
All 13 chart patternsDiagrams, target calculations & live detectionThe chart patterns guideHow trigger, volume, measured move & invalidation fit together

Disclaimer: This page is educational and does not constitute financial advice. Chart patterns describe historical tendencies, not certainties. Cryptocurrency markets are volatile — always do your own research and never invest more than you can afford to lose.