Bulkowski’s Bullish Abandoned Baby

Written and copyright © 2008-2010 by Thomas N. Bulkowski. All rights reserved.

In my book, Encyclopedia of Candlestick Charts, pictured on the right, I explore the entire range of candlestick patterns from abandoned babies to windows (not exactly A to Z, but you get the idea), in both bull and bear markets, using almost 5 million candle lines in the tests.

The book takes an in-depth look at 103 candlestick patterns and reports on behavior and rank (3 types: reversal rate, frequency, and overall performance), identification guidelines, performance statistics (tables of general statistics, height, and volume), trading tactics (tables of statistics on reversal rates and performance indicators), and wraps each chapter with a sample trade. I share a sliver of that information below. If you like what you read here, then you will love the book. Help support this website and buy a copy by clicking on the above link.

The bullish abandoned baby candlestick pattern is a bullish reversal with a good track record of reversing (ranking 13th). There is just one problem. You won’t be able to find it. The candle is rare with a frequency rank of 92nd out of 103 candle types. When you can find it, and assuming price breaks out downward, you can make some change. However, the bear market numbers have fewer than 20 samples, so the performance is not likely to stand up.

Important Results

Theoretical performance: Bullish reversal Tested performance: Bullish reversal 70% of the time Frequency rank: 92 Overall performance rank: 9 Best percentage meeting price target: 71% (bear market, down breakout) Best average move in 10 days: -10.31% (bear market, down breakout) Best 10-day performance rank: 1 (bear market, down breakout) All ranks are out of 103 candlestick patterns with the top performer ranking 1. "Best" means the highest rated of the four combinations of bull/bear market, up/down breakouts.

Bullish Abandoned Baby

Discussion

The bullish abandoned baby acts as a bullish reversal 70% of the time, which is very good, if you can find the candle to trade, that is. I located just 293 examples out of 4.7 million candle lines, and I checked every adoption center in the state!

The best average move 10 days after a breakout is a drop of 10.31% in a bear market. Since I consider moves of 6% or higher to be good, this one is a barn burner. Unfortunately, it is based on just 14 candle patterns. That means it is unreliable and likely to change. However, such a large drop in 10 days gives the candlestick a performance rank of 1 -- first place. Yippee!

Identification Guidelines

Three Trading Tidbits

If you want a few bones from my Encyclopedia of candlestick charts book, here are three to chew on. The pages refer to the book where the tips appear.

1. Bullish abandoned baby candles that appear within a third of the yearly low perform best after an upward breakout (but samples are few so this result might change) -- page 83.
2. Select tall candles for the best performance -- page 83.
3. Bullish abandoned babies form at the end of short down trends -- page 84-86.

Example

The chart shows a bullish abandoned baby circled in red on the daily scale. Price trends downward for a few days before the candle pattern begins.

The first day is a black candle of any shape -- wide, tall, who cares? The next day is the doji. A doji is a candle line in which the opening and closing prices are within pennies of each other. The final day is a white candle. There must be a price gap between the top of the doji and the surrounding two candles, like that shown in the figure.

Since the price trend leading to this bullish abandoned baby is downward and the breakout is upward, this candle acts as a reversal. An upward breakout is when price closes above the top of the pattern. A downward breakout would be a close below the bottom of the three-line pattern. Notice that the upward price trend after the bullish abandoned baby does not last long.

-- Thomas Bulkowski