Inside bars: do you trade the breakout of the mother bar?

An inside bar — a candle contained by the previous one's range — signals compression, and the trade is the break of the mother bar's high or low. In ranges it whipsaws; in trends it catches continuations.

Inside bars: do you trade the breakout of the mother bar? — support and resistance diagram
Price bouncing between support and resistance

How do you trade them?

  • the conditions that make an inside bar tradeable
  • your entry, stop and target on the break
  • the regime where inside bars burn you
Inside bars: do you trade the breakout of the mother bar? — trend versus range diagram
A trending market compared with a ranging one

The candlestick guide covers the pattern's structure.

Background: How to read candlestick charts

Candlesticks pack four prices into one shape. How to read the body and wicks, what timeframes mean and why single patterns are weaker than they look.

What do the wicks on a candlestick mean?

The wicks show the highest and lowest prices reached during the period. A long wick shows that the price moved there but was pushed back before the candle closed.

Are candlestick patterns reliable?

Not on their own. They are more meaningful at important price levels and on higher timeframes, and they should be combined with a clear plan for risk.

Read the full guide

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