Kicking Pattern (Bullish & Bearish)

A Bullish Kicking pattern is two candles: a long red marubozu, then a long green marubozu that opens above the red candle's open. The space between them is a gap.

A marubozu (Japanese for “close-cropped”) is a candle with a long body and no shadows, the thin lines that mark how far price went beyond the open and close. With no shadows, the open and close are also the day's high and low: one side was in control from the first trade to the last. (A long candle shaved at its opening end only is a Belt Hold.) If the parts of a candle are new to you, start with the Candlestick Basics guide.

The mirror, a Bearish Kicking pattern, is a long green marubozu followed by a long red marubozu that opens below the green candle's open. This guide teaches the bullish form first and the bearish one as its mirror. Traders also call it a kicker, a name often used for a looser version (see the comparison below).

Two sessions, two moods, and a night in between when the mood changed.

The second candle decides. A green marubozu that gaps above a red one is bullish; a red marubozu that gaps below a green one is bearish. Many definitions do not require a trend before it, because the flip between the two candles is the signal. Others only count it when it reverses a move. Either way, read the direction from the second candle.

It is also one of the rarest patterns on a daily chart. A kicking pattern is dramatic to look at, but the two candles alone do not prove the move will last. The close decides: the idea holds while price closes beyond the gap, and fails on a close back through it.

A gap is a band of prices nobody traded: the next session trades entirely beyond the previous session's range. The Abandoned Baby guide covers how to check one. In a kicking pattern the gap carries the story, because of what sits on each side of it.

On one side is a session of pure selling. On the other is a session of pure buying. No session traded the prices between them, so there was no gradual change of mind during the day. The whole shift happened while the market was closed. That usually means new information arrived overnight, and traders repriced the stock before the first trade.

That is also why the gap tells you more than either candle. A long green candle can happen on any day. A long green candle that opens above the point where yesterday started means everyone who sold yesterday, at any price, sold below where the market now trades.

The natural place for a stop is just under the green candle's low. That puts it at the top of the gap, the first level an ordinary pullback reaches.

After a big gap, price often drifts back into it for a day or two. Some buyers take quick profits, and traders who doubt the move sell into it. A pullback like that is a partial fill: price trades back into the gap without crossing it. It does not undo the flip.

What undoes it is a close back below the gap's bottom, the red candle's open. Then price has traded through every level the overnight move skipped, and the market is back where the selling day began.

A Breakaway turns this around: there the gap belongs to the trend that is ending, so filling it is the confirmation.

The idea fails on a close below the gap's bottom. A resting stop order is different: it fires the moment price trades there, even for a minute. On a news stock, a stop a few cents under the gap's bottom can be hit by an intraday dip that closes back above it. Traders disagree on how to handle that. Two practical choices:

Exit on a close. Watch the close and sell if it ends below the gap's bottom. This follows the rule exactly, but the exit price can be well below that level.

Rest the stop at the pattern's low. Put the order below the bottom of the red candle. Dips into the red body no longer stop you out, but each share risks more.

Either way, stay clear of the gap itself. And no stop is a guaranteed price: after more news, a stock can open straight through any of these levels.

Kicking versus kicker. Many traders use “kicker” for a looser version: two long opposite candles, shadows allowed, where the second still opens beyond the first one's open. With shadows, the first candle's high can sit above its open, so the candles may overlap there. The story is the same; the strict marubozu version is simply rarer.

Kicking versus separating lines. In bullish separating lines, the green candle opens right at the red candle's open: the market returns to where yesterday began and carries on from there. Add a gap above that open, with both candles shaved, and the pair becomes a kicking pattern.

Kicking versus engulfing. A Bullish Engulfing opens below the red close, so sellers start the day in control and buyers win it back during the session. A kicking pattern opens above the red candle's open: the fight was over before trading began.

In between sits the Tasuki Line, whose green candle opens inside the red body: sellers got no lower open, and buyers still did most of the work during the session.

In the bearish form, a session of pure buying is followed by a session that opens below where the buying began and falls all day. Everyone who bought the green candle is behind at the open. Everything else in this guide applies upside down.

Volume. A gap on news should come with heavy trading. A kicking pattern on light volume is a large move that few traders took part in. Read the Candlesticks + Volume guide →

Size. Average True Range (ATR), a measure of how far a stock usually moves in a day, tells you whether the candles and the gap are big for this stock, and how wide the stop really is. Read the Candlesticks + ATR guide →

Moving averages. The 50-day moving average shows the larger trend the kick is joining or fighting. Read the Candlesticks + Moving Averages guide →

A kicking pattern is the market changing its mind overnight. One session belongs to the sellers, the next to the buyers, and the gap between them shows nobody was willing to trade the prices in the middle.

Read the gap, not just the candles. It tells you what changed, and its far side tells you where you are wrong. Give it room, size for the wide stop, and remember that a dramatic pattern still needs the gap to hold.