SkyTrade
Sign up
FeaturesPlatformSecuritySign in
Glossary · Candlestick patterns

Tweezer tops and bottoms

Two or more candles with matching highs (tweezer top) or matching lows (tweezer bottom), showing a level rejected twice in a row.

By Sky Trade editorial teamUpdated

A tweezer top forms when two consecutive candles, often of opposite colour, reach nearly the same high. A tweezer bottom is the same idea with matching lows. The repeated test shows a price level stopping the move twice — a miniature version of support or resistance being respected.

Tweezers are most interesting when:

  • they occur after a clear move up (tops) or down (bottoms);
  • the matching extreme lines up with a known level;
  • the second candle closes firmly in the reversal direction.

They are easy to spot, which is also their weakness. On short timeframes, highs matching within a pip happen all the time, especially in quiet hours when price barely moves. Without a trend before them and a level behind them, tweezers are mostly coincidence.

They often overlap with other patterns: a tweezer top made of a bullish candle followed by a bearish engulfing, or a tweezer bottom whose second candle is a hammer. That overlap adds some weight; the matching extremes alone add little. On Sky Trade's OTC instruments, equal highs and lows arise by chance on a random path. See tweezer tops and bottoms.

Example

After a 25-pip rise, two EUR/USD M5 candles both peak at 1.0912, and the second closes at 1.0901. That tweezer top at yesterday's high is a possible Lower setup if the next candle closes below 1.0898.

Learn more in the academy

Related terms

Practise first, then decide

Every Sky Trade account comes with a $10,000 demo balance on the same prices and payouts as the real account. Create an account or read how the demo works.

Create an accountAbout the demo account