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Glossary · Candlestick patterns

Marubozu

A candle with a long body and no or almost no wicks: price opened at one extreme and closed at the other, showing one-sided control.

By Sky Trade editorial teamUpdated

Marubozu means roughly “shaved head” in Japanese: a candle without shadows. A bullish marubozu opens at its low and closes at its high; a bearish one opens at its high and closes at its low. In practice traders accept very small wicks.

The pattern describes complete control by one side during the period. Buyers or sellers pushed from the first tick to the last without meaningful pushback. That makes it a momentum signal rather than a reversal signal:

  • after a range, a marubozu can mark a breakout;
  • within a trend, it confirms strength;
  • after a long trend, an unusually large marubozu can be a climax, closer to the end than the start.

The common mistake is chasing it. The candle shows what already happened, and the next candle frequently retraces part of it. On very short timeframes marubozu-like candles also appear simply because price moved in a straight line for a few seconds.

Its opposite is the spinning top: mostly wicks, little body. See marubozu and spinning top.

Example

After an hour between 1.2600 and 1.2620, a GBP/USD M5 candle opens at 1.2619, closes at 1.2641 and has a high of 1.2642: a bullish marubozu that breaks the range.

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