Marubozu

What is a Marubozu?

A marubozu is a candlestick that is all body: open and close sit at (or nearly at) the bar's extremes, leaving no meaningful shadow on either end. The Japanese name means 'bald' or 'shaved'. A bullish marubozu opens at its low and closes at its high; a bearish one opens at its high and closes at its low. One side held control from the first trade to the last, which makes it the conviction candle, the opposite end of the spectrum from a doji.

Candlestick references split the pattern three ways: a full marubozu has no shadow at either end, an opening marubozu has none at the open end, and a closing marubozu has none at the close end. The closing variant is conventionally read as the stronger of the partial forms, since the drive persisted into the close. As with any wide-range bar, location decides the meaning: initiative early in a move, potentially climactic after an extended one.

How traders use it

• As a breakout-quality read: a marubozu closing through a level suggests one-sided participation through the break, versus a long-wicked candle that traded through and was pushed back.
• As a component of larger patterns: engulfing bars, three-soldiers-style sequences, and momentum ignition candles all read stronger when the individual bars are marubozu-like.
• As an exhaustion caution: an unusually large marubozu after a long run can be the climax rather than the beginning, so many traders check volume and how price treats the candle's midpoint before chasing it.