Piercing Line

Piercing Line detects the classic two-candle bullish reversal: a long bearish candle, then a weak open answered by a close reclaiming more than half of the first body while staying below its open. The definitive clean build of the piercing line sizes the first candle against the average body of the preceding candles and screens prints by trend, location, and volume.

How to Trade the Piercing Line?

• Pattern label: the tooltip reports open qualification, penetration depth, volume versus average, and trigger and stop prices.
• Trigger break: with the default Pattern High trigger, the reversal is active once price trades above the pattern's high; the break fires an alert.
• Invalidation: a trade back below the second candle's low — the rejected gap-down low — is tracked by a dashed stop level and alert.

Deeper closes are stronger evidence; the next candle closing higher is the conventional confirmation, with its own alert.

Piercing Line Settings

• Open Requirement (default Below Prior Close (Classic)): Strict wants a gap below the prior low; Relaxed accepts an open at the prior close.
• Body Average Length (default 14): candles in the average body that sizes the first candle.
• Long Body Multiplier (default 1): minimum first-candle body as a multiple of that average.
• Minimum Penetration % (default 50): how far up the first body the close must reach.
• Downtrend Filter (default enabled), SMA Length (default 50): the first candle must close below the average.
• New Low Location (default disabled), Window (default 20): the pattern must print the window's lowest low.
• Volume Filter (default disabled), Multiple (default 1), Length (default 20): requires elevated second-candle volume.
• Trigger & Stop Levels (default enabled), Trigger Level (default Pattern High), Levels Extension (default 10): the drawn reference levels; Style toggles cover the rest.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the bearish counterpart of the piercing line?

Dark Cloud Cover is the mirror image at the top of an advance: a strong open closing down through a long bullish candle's midpoint. Same grading logic, opposite direction.

Why doesn't a close above the first candle's open count?

A second body swallowing the whole first body is an engulfing pattern, not a piercing line, so the build leaves it out by design. The close must land above the midpoint but below the first open.

Do the context filters change the pattern definition?

No — the anatomy is fixed. The filters only decide which prints deserve attention: a decline into the pattern, recent new lows, heavier recovery volume.