Inside Bar Pattern: Shape, Meaning, and Examples on Crypto Charts
Schematic of the Inside Bar shape. What matters is the proportion of body and wicks, not the price figures.
Inside Bar pattern shape
- The first candle has a wide range and is called the mother candle.
- The second candle has a lower high and a higher low than the mother candle.
- The second candle's entire range, wicks included, sits inside the mother candle's range.
General meaning
An inside bar records contraction: a full period passes without price ever leaving the bounds of the previous period. What it shows is a pause and a shrinking range, not a direction. A series of consecutive inside bars shows an ever tighter contraction.
Where it usually appears
Often appears after a candle with a very wide range, during quiet hours between major trading sessions, and ahead of data releases when traders hold back.
Worth noting. An inside bar has no directional bias at all. Attaching a direction to it means adding an interpretation that isn't in the shape.
See live detection on the chart
The CryptoHalley chart engine marks Inside Bar automatically with id inside_bar, no extra indicator needed. Open the chart and browse the labeled candles.
FAQ
- Does the color of an inside bar matter?
- Not in the definition of its shape. The only check is whether its high and low sit inside the mother candle's range. Body color isn't counted.
- How wide does the mother candle need to be for the pattern to count?
- CryptoHalley requires the mother candle's range to be at least 0.8 times ATR 14, so two equally narrow candles in a quiet market aren't marked as an inside bar.
- How is it different from an outside bar?
- It's the opposite: in an outside bar, the second candle's range exceeds the previous candle on both sides. CryptoHalley's engine currently marks only inside bars.