Three White Soldiers and Three Black Crows
— What Three Candles in a Row Are Saying
Three White Soldiers and Three Black Crows are patterns where candles in the same direction show up three times in a row. Unlike the reversal patterns covered before this, this is a record of a trend continuing.
A Different Kind of Spot Than a Reversal Pattern
Most of the patterns covered so far dealt with the point where a trend changes. Three-in-a-row patterns are a different animal. The content here is simply that the same direction repeated.
But a record that says "it's still going" reads in opposite ways depending on where it shows up. Three White Soldiers appearing at a bottom, and Three White Soldiers appearing after a big prior rally, look identical but have very different amounts of room left to run. We get into that difference later in this article.
Conditions for Three White Soldiers
- Three bullish candles in a row
- Each candle's close is higher than the previous candle's close
- Each candle's open starts within the previous candle's body range
- Short upper wicks — closing near the high
The third condition is the key one. An open that starts inside the previous candle's body means the prior day's gain held up overnight into the next morning. It's a record of the price climbing further from that same level without getting reversed overnight, which is different from simply "it went up for three days in a row."
On the other hand, if each day opened with a big gap up, it falls outside this condition. That kind of move is closer to a repeated gap up than a three-soldiers pattern, and it carries the risk of the gap getting filled back in.
Three Black Crows
Three bearish candles appear in a row, each closing lower than the one before, with each open starting inside the previous candle's body. Short lower wicks mean it closes near the low. It's a record that the downward pressure held for three straight days.
What Wick Length Tells You About Fatigue
This is the practically useful part of three-in-a-row patterns. Watch whether the wicks on the three candles are getting progressively longer.
| Wick pattern | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| All three candles have short wicks | Strength held through the close all three times |
| Upper wicks get longer with each candle | Still climbing, but the strength holding the gains is weakening |
| The third candle's body is noticeably smaller | Same direction, but the size of the move is shrinking |
← Scroll sideways to see the full table.
By shape alone, all three of these count as Three White Soldiers, but the information they carry is different. Just counting "are there three in a row" erases that distinction.
Three White Soldiers After a Big Prior Rally
The same Three White Soldiers pattern means something different when it's the first one after a long sideways stretch versus when it shows up after the price has already climbed a long way. The latter is both a record that the trend is continuing and, at the same time, a record that the price has already moved that much further away from where it started.
This connects directly to the issue covered in the risk of chasing trades and spike and fade. Whether the pattern is detected and whether now is a good place to enter are two separate questions.
That's why, when looking at a three-in-a-row pattern, it also helps to check how far the price has stretched from its moving average and how wide the range has been relative to normal. A volatility measure like ATR is used for that comparison.
Where the "Three in a Row" Call Trips People Up Most Often
The condition "three candles in a row" sounds simple, but it's often ambiguous on a real chart. The second candle might be very small, or the third candle's open might drift slightly outside the previous candle's body. If you apply the condition loosely in these cases, the number of patterns you catch balloons. Writing down your standard and counting by the same rule every time is what ultimately gives your judgment consistency.