Engulfing pairs: counted over ten years
Bullish engulfing
| Instrument | Found | Counted | Hit | Miss | Undecided | Hit share | Average result, ATR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliance Industries | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 66.7% | +1.10 |
| HDFC Bank | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 100.0% | +2.24 |
| ICICI Bank | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 50.0% | +0.46 |
| Infosys | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — |
| Tata Consultancy Services | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — |
| State Bank of India | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0.0% | -1.22 |
| ITC | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — |
| Larsen & Toubro | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — |
| Axis Bank | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — |
| Bharti Airtel | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | -0.66 |
| Nifty IT | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — |
| All instruments | 8 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 50.0% | +0.57 |
| Any session, same test, textbook direction up | 26729 | 10163 | 38.0% |
bullish engulfing: the definition above applied to every occurrence the rule found. Shares are hits divided by counted.
Bearish engulfing
| Instrument | Found | Counted | Hit | Miss | Undecided | Hit share | Average result, ATR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliance Industries | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 25.0% | -0.39 |
| HDFC Bank | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.0% | +0.09 |
| ICICI Bank | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 100.0% | +2.22 |
| Infosys | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — |
| Tata Consultancy Services | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0.0% | -1.01 |
| State Bank of India | 6 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 50.0% | +1.03 |
| ITC | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0.0% | -1.31 |
| Larsen & Toubro | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 50.0% | +0.79 |
| Axis Bank | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — |
| Bharti Airtel | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 33.3% | -0.49 |
| Nifty IT | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — |
| All instruments | 20 | 19 | 7 | 9 | 3 | 36.8% | +0.25 |
| Any session, same test, textbook direction down | 26729 | 7432 | 27.8% |
bearish engulfing: the definition above applied to every occurrence the rule found. Shares are hits divided by counted. Left out: fewer than 20 sessions of history after the completing close: 1.
- Up session (close above open), hollow
- Down session (close below open), filled
- Target level
- Cancel level
- Candles of the model
- Close that completes the model
The rule that found it
Rule EN-1: a down candle with a body of at least 0.3 ATR, then an up candle with a body of at least 1 ATR whose body covers the whole body of the first (it opens at or below the first close and closes at or above the first open, and at least one of the two is strict); it comes after a fall (the close of the session before the pair stands at least 2 ATR below the highest close of the 5 sessions ending there). It counts as formed when the second candle closes.
Rule HIT-IN: a figure found by its written rule is counted at the close that completes it (for a candle model, the close of its last candle). From that close C, and the ATR of that session, the textbook direction follows from the figure: down for head and shoulders, double top, descending triangle and bearish engulfing; up for double bottom, ascending triangle and bullish engulfing. It is a hit if one of the next 20 sessions closes at least 2 ATR from C in that direction before any session has closed 1 ATR or more from C the other way. It is a miss if a close 1 ATR against comes first. If neither happens within 20 sessions it is undecided and counts as not a hit: it stays in the denominator. Only closes decide, never highs or lows. A figure with fewer than 20 sessions of history after it is left out and counted separately. The result of an occurrence is the distance from C to the close that decided it (or to the 20th close), in ATR, positive in the textbook direction.
- Up session (close above open), hollow
- Down session (close below open), filled
- Target level
- Cancel level
- Candles of the model
- Close that completes the model
The rule that found it
Rule EN-1: a down candle with a body of at least 0.3 ATR, then an up candle with a body of at least 1 ATR whose body covers the whole body of the first (it opens at or below the first close and closes at or above the first open, and at least one of the two is strict); it comes after a fall (the close of the session before the pair stands at least 2 ATR below the highest close of the 5 sessions ending there). It counts as formed when the second candle closes.
Rule HIT-IN: a figure found by its written rule is counted at the close that completes it (for a candle model, the close of its last candle). From that close C, and the ATR of that session, the textbook direction follows from the figure: down for head and shoulders, double top, descending triangle and bearish engulfing; up for double bottom, ascending triangle and bullish engulfing. It is a hit if one of the next 20 sessions closes at least 2 ATR from C in that direction before any session has closed 1 ATR or more from C the other way. It is a miss if a close 1 ATR against comes first. If neither happens within 20 sessions it is undecided and counts as not a hit: it stays in the denominator. Only closes decide, never highs or lows. A figure with fewer than 20 sessions of history after it is left out and counted separately. The result of an occurrence is the distance from C to the close that decided it (or to the 20th close), in ATR, positive in the textbook direction.
The engulfing pair is the most frequent figure here: 8 bullish and 20 bearish pairs were found. Bullish pairs were hits 4 of 8 times (50.0 percent, yardstick 38.0); bearish pairs 7 of 19 (36.8 percent, yardstick 27.8). Even 19 is a small number.
The rule
Rule EN-1 is a down candle with a body of at least 0.3 ATR, then an up candle with a body of at least 1 ATR whose body covers the whole body of the first, after a fall: the close before the pair stands at least 2 ATR below the highest close of the 5 sessions ending there. Rule EN-2 is the mirror, after a rise. The pair counts as formed when the second candle closes, and that close is C.
The hit is then judged by the site's single definition: a close 2 ATR from C in the textbook direction within 20 sessions, before any close 1 ATR the other way.
Bullish pairs
Eight bullish pairs, all counted: four hits, three misses and one undecided, 50.0 percent against a yardstick of 38.0 percent, average result +0.57 ATR. Reliance Industries gave three (two hits, one miss), HDFC Bank one hit, ICICI Bank two (one hit, one miss), State Bank of India one miss, Bharti Airtel one undecided.
The share is twelve points above its yardstick on eight occurrences, which is one result and a half. It is the kind of gap that a different year in the history could remove.
Bearish pairs
Twenty bearish pairs were found and 19 counted, one being left out for want of 20 sessions of history: seven hits, nine misses and three undecided, 36.8 percent against 27.8 percent, average result +0.25 ATR. State Bank of India alone gave six and Reliance and Bharti Airtel four each.
This is the largest sample on the site and still small. Twelve of the nineteen did not reach the 2 ATR target first, and the share is nine points above the yardstick, which shows how hard the test is to pass in either direction. Neither number is a forecast.
Why a larger count is not a better guide
Nineteen is the biggest sample in the site's tables, and the bearish pair's wider spread of results is visible in them: instrument by instrument the counts are tiny: State Bank of India three hits in six, ICICI Bank one in one, Reliance Industries one in four. A count that grows with more instruments also grows with more overlapping periods, when several stocks fell together in the same weeks, so the occurrences are not independent.
The table prints each count so that a reader can see how much weight a share can carry. For both pairs, the answer is not much.
The two drawn examples
The charts show bullish pairs. The hit is ICICI Bank, completed on 1 October 2025 at a close of 1,372.00 with an ATR of 16.99; on 16 October a close came 2.67 ATR above C. The miss is Reliance Industries, completed on 13 March 2020 at 505.31 with an ATR of 33.48; the next trading day, 16 March, closed 1.22 ATR below C and cancelled it.
Both are real stretches of the stored series, counted in the table above. They illustrate the two outcomes; they do not represent the typical pair.
At a glance
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Questions about the count
How many engulfing pairs were found?
Eight bullish and twenty bearish across the 11 instruments in ten years; one bearish pair is left out of the shares because fewer than 20 sessions followed it.
How often did they hit?
Bullish: 4 of 8, 50.0 percent. Bearish: 7 of 19, 36.8 percent.
How does that compare with a start on any day?
The same test from any session passed 38.0 percent upward and 27.8 percent downward.
Why does the bearish pair have so many occurrences?
Its rule is looser in what it needs: two candles and a short rise, with no multi-week structure. Looser rules find more figures, which are individually less distinctive.
Does a larger sample make the share reliable?
It makes it less noisy, but nineteen occurrences, overlapping in time, still carry little weight.
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