Harami and Engulfing Patterns
Two two-bar relationships that are mirror images: one bar contained inside the previous one, or one bar covering it entirely.
MadStockAlerts Research · Updated August 28, 2026
What to take away
- A harami has the second bar's body inside the first's.
- An engulfing bar has the second body covering the first's entirely.
- The harami describes a sudden narrowing; engulfing describes a reversal of a whole session.
- Both are defined on bodies rather than on the full range, which is a convention.
- Timeframe aggregation creates and destroys both.
MAD Academy Training Video · 0:44
Inside and Outside, and Why They Differ
A harami sits inside the prior candle and an engulfing swallows it. One means hesitation; the other means a decision.
This lesson is part of a Stock Alerts + Tools plan.
The two relationships
| Harami | Engulfing | |
|---|---|---|
| Second body | Inside the first's range | Covering the first's entirely |
| What it describes | A wide session followed by a narrow one | A session that reversed the whole of the previous one |
| Colour convention | Second bar opposite in colour | Second bar opposite in colour |
| Frequency | Common | Common |
The second row is what each is actually saying, and both statements are about the relationship between two sessions rather than about anything that follows them.
Bodies, not ranges
Both patterns are conventionally defined on the bodies, meaning the open and the close, and ignore the wicks. A bar that engulfs the previous body while its own range is entirely inside the previous range still counts.
That convention is not universal, and definitions requiring the full range to be engulfed produce a much rarer and different pattern. Any statistic quoted about these patterns depends on which definition was tested.
Scroll the chart sideways to see all of it.
The aggregation problem
Both patterns are properties of how the data was aggregated. Two daily bars in an engulfing relationship are eight hourly bars that are not, and the same trading produces the pattern on one chart and not another.
- A weekly engulfing bar and a daily one describe different amounts of trading.
- Whether extended hours are included changes the opens and closes, and therefore the bodies.
- A provider whose bars start at a different boundary produces different patterns from the same trades.
- None of this affects a horizontal level, which is a price rather than a bar shape.
The reading that holds
An engulfing bar at a level that has held before, on volume well above average, is a description of a session in which a large number of participants transacted and the direction reversed. That is worth noticing. The name adds nothing to it.
The harami's equivalent is a sudden collapse in range after a wide session, which is the same observation the volatility contraction article makes over a longer window: disagreement narrowed sharply.
What the wicks were doing
Because both patterns are defined on bodies, two sessions that satisfy the definition can have completely different ranges, and the range is where the rest of the information is.
| Case | What the session actually did |
|---|---|
| Engulfing body, small wicks | The move was one-directional through the session |
| Engulfing body, long wicks both sides | A wide, volatile session that happened to close where it did |
| Harami with a tiny range | A genuine collapse in activity |
| Harami with a wide range and a small body | Substantial movement that ended near where it started |
The second and fourth rows are sessions the pattern name describes and the description misrepresents. Reading the range alongside the body is what separates a session in which one side took control from one that simply ended in a particular place.
This is the same argument the reading-a-candlestick article makes about the four prices. The name compresses them into a category, and the compression discards the part that distinguishes the cases.