# Spinning Top A Chart & Candlestick Patterns concept (Candlestick catalog) in the LuxAlgo Library, with 1 indicator implementation. ## What is a Spinning Top? A spinning top is a single candle with a small real body near the middle of its range and upper and lower shadows that are each longer than the body. The shape records a session where both sides pushed and neither held: price traveled well above and below the open, then settled close to where it started. Body color matters little, since the open-to-close distance is small by definition. It is the standard candlestick shorthand for indecision, one step short of a [doji](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/doji/), whose body is virtually zero, and the polar opposite of a [marubozu](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/marubozu/), which is all body and no shadow. Context supplies all of the meaning. After a strong directional run, a spinning top says momentum stalled and the next candle gets to resolve the standoff; inside an established range it is ordinary noise. It is also the archetypal middle candle of star reversals such as the [morning star](https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/morning-star/). The Japanese tradition named it koma, after the child's toy it resembles, and the taxonomy around it grades indecision by degree: the doji at the extreme where the body vanishes, the spinning top with its small but visible body, and the high-wave candle, the wilder cousin whose shadows stretch to multiples of the body, indecision with violence. Measurement conventions are honest approximations, scanners typically demanding a body under some fraction of the range, a third being common, with both shadows exceeding the body, and the thresholds between the species are arbitrary enough that different tools tag different bars. Frequency is the reading's discipline: spinning tops print constantly, so nearly all of them mean nothing, and the ones that matter are located, after extended runs, at mapped levels, in the star position of multi-candle reversals. Volume adds the second dimension: an indecisive candle on unremarkable volume is a rest, while the same shape on heavy volume at an extreme records a genuine fight where size changed hands without progress, churn worth respecting. Scanner builds that tag momentum versus indecisive candles automate the sorting, leaving the trader the location judgment. ## How to identify a spinning top Small body, centered, both shadows longer: then location does the rest. 1. Require a small real body: open-to-close distance well under the bar's range, a third or less in common scanner rules. 2. Require centrality: the body sitting near the middle of the range rather than pinned at either end. 3. Require both shadows to exceed the body, the two-sided excursion that separates indecision from one-sided rejection. 4. Locate it: after an extended run or at a mapped level the bar is information, inside a drifting range it is noise. 5. Wait for resolution: the following candle's direction converts the standoff into a read, and most playbooks act on that candle, not the top itself. ## How traders use it - As a pause marker after an extended move: traders wait for the following candle to resolve direction before reading it as reversal or continuation. - As the indecision component inside multi-candle patterns, most visibly the star position of morning and evening stars. - As a filter: entries that would trigger on a spinning top are often skipped or downsized because the bar carries no directional information on its own. - With volume context: a spinning top on heavy volume at an extreme reads as churn, size fighting without progress, and earns attention that the common quiet variety never deserves. - In automated tagging: indecisive-candle finders classify bars mechanically, so systems can suppress signals on indecision bars and journals can measure how often the standoffs resolved each way. ## Spinning top vs related single candles - **Doji** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/doji/): The same indecision one degree further: the doji's open and close nearly coincide, its body a line. The boundary between the two is an arbitrary body threshold that varies by scanner, and their readings are identical in kind, the doji simply the stronger statement. - **Pin Bar** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/pin-bar/): Both carry long shadows; the difference is symmetry. The pin bar's single dominant wick records one-sided rejection, a directional statement; the spinning top's balanced wicks record a stalemate. One says a side failed, the other says neither side won. - **Marubozu** (https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/marubozu/): The polar opposite: all body, no shadow, one side in complete control from open to close. Between the marubozu's conviction and the spinning top's balance runs the whole single-candle spectrum, and reading bars is largely locating them on it. ## FAQ ### Is a spinning top bullish or bearish? Neither on its own. It records balance: buyers and sellers both extended price and both were faded back toward the open. The directional read comes from location and resolution. After a long advance it hints at exhaustion, after a decline at stabilization, and the candle that follows usually decides which interpretation was right, which is why most traders wait for it. ### What is the difference between a spinning top and a doji? Body size. A doji opens and closes at nearly the same price, so its real body is essentially a line; a spinning top has a small but visible body with shadows longer than the body on both sides. Both express indecision, the doji being the more extreme version. In practice the threshold between them is arbitrary and varies between scanners. ### What body-to-range ratio defines a spinning top? No standard exists; the definitions are conventions. Common scanner rules ask for a body under a third of the bar's range with each shadow longer than the body, some demand the body sit within the middle third of the range, and every threshold choice tags a slightly different population of bars. The lesson is the usual one for loosely specified patterns: fix a rule, keep it, and let consistency create the meaning. ### What is a high-wave candle? The spinning top's violent sibling: the same small centered body with shadows stretched to several times its height, recording indecision conducted at high energy, both sides driving price far and both fully repelled. The tradition reads it as stronger evidence than the ordinary top, especially after extended moves, since that much two-sided excursion with no net progress suggests genuine disagreement among committed size. ### Does volume change the reading? Materially. The common quiet spinning top is a market resting, unremarkable by construction; the same shape on expanded volume at a trend extreme is churn, heavy business transacted with zero progress, which is how absorption looks on a single candle. The volume-graded version of the pattern is the one worth alerts, and it is the pairing, indecisive shape plus loud participation plus meaningful location, that upgrades it. ### Can spinning tops be traded on their own? Almost never profitably: they print constantly and carry no direction by definition. Their value is grammatical, as the pause that gives the next candle its meaning, the indecision component that makes star reversals legible, and the filter condition that keeps entry logic from triggering on bars with nothing to say. The trade, when there is one, belongs to the resolution candle and its location, with the top as the setup's punctuation. ## Implementations in the Library - Spinning Top (LuxAlgo): https://www.luxalgo.com/library/indicator/spinning-top/ ## Related concepts - Hammer: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/hammer/ - Bullish/bearish Engulfing: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/bullish-bearish-engulfing/ - Shooting Star: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/shooting-star/ - Doji: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/doji/ - Gravestone Doji: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/gravestone-doji/ - Dragonfly Doji: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/dragonfly-doji/ - Marubozu: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/marubozu/ - Hanging Man: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/hanging-man/ - Inverted Hammer: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/inverted-hammer/ - Harami: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/harami/ --- Source: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/concept/spinning-top/ (LuxAlgo Library, the encyclopedia of trading & technical analysis). Free to use with attribution: https://www.luxalgo.com/library/license/