Three white soldiers and three black crows on gold

Three white soldiers and three black crows are three long candles in a row in one direction, each opening within the previous body and closing near its extreme. The soldiers appear after a fall, and the crows after a rise. This page has no chart, and that is the finding: in ten years of daily bars on gold futures and the SPDR gold fund, the written rules for both found none.

What three white soldiers are

Three white soldiers are three long white candles in a row. Each candle opens within the previous body and closes near its high. The pattern appears after a fall, and it is read as a sign that buyers have taken control. The three candles show a steady push up, with each candle making a higher close.

The soldiers are a three-candle pattern. The candles should be long, and they should not have long lower shadows. The pattern is a sign of strong momentum. But the pattern describes what price has already done, and it does not predict what it will do next.

What three black crows are

Three black crows are three long black candles in a row. Each candle opens within the previous body and closes near its low. The pattern appears after a rise, and it is read as a sign that sellers have taken control. The three candles show a steady push down, with each candle making a lower close.

The crows are a three-candle pattern. The candles should be long, and they should not have long upper shadows. The pattern is a sign of strong momentum. But the pattern describes what price has already done, and it does not predict what it will do next.

What the run says about momentum

The run of three candles in one direction says that momentum is strong. Each candle opens within the previous body, meaning there is no gap against the move. Each candle closes near its extreme, meaning the move did not fade into the close. The three candles show a persistent push.

The run is a fact about the past. It says that for three sessions, one side was in control. It does not say that the control will continue. Momentum can change quickly, and the fourth candle may be different. The pattern is a description, not a forecast.

The exact rule, in numbers

The three candles must each have a body of at least 0.6 ATR, where ATR is the average true range of the last 14 sessions. For the soldiers, each candle opens inside the body of the one before, closes above that candle's close, and has an upper shadow of at most a quarter of its body. The three must come after a fall: the close of the session before them stands at least 2 ATR below the highest close of the 5 sessions ending there. The pattern counts as formed when the third candle closes. The crows are the mirror, with lower shadows and a rise before.

The rule asks for the second candle to open inside the first body, not beyond it. A weekend gap between candles can therefore break the sequence, and a sequence that spans a weekend is judged by the same numbers as any other.

The mistake of calling the pattern after a move that has already gone far

The mistake is to call three soldiers or three crows after a move that has already gone far. The pattern is a sign of momentum, but momentum can be exhausted. If the three candles come after a long rise or fall, the move may be overextended. The pattern may be a blow-off top or a capitulation low, not the start of a new trend.

The pattern is most useful when it appears after a short pullback in an existing trend, or after a period of consolidation. But even then, it is not a guarantee. The pattern describes what price has already done, and it does not predict what it will do next.

Why this page has no chart

Every other pattern page of this site opens with a real stretch of gold's history. This one cannot. Rule 3W-1 (three white soldiers) and rule 3W-2 (three black crows) were run over every daily bar of the two instruments this site keeps, COMEX gold futures and the SPDR gold fund, from 7 November 2016 to 5 November 2026. They found no occurrence on either instrument. The rules were not loosened to produce one and no stretch is drawn by hand.

What the rules ask is strict. Rule 3W-1: three up candles in a row, each with a body of at least 0.6 ATR; each opens inside the body of the one before and closes above its close; each has an upper shadow of at most a quarter of its body; and the three come after a fall, the close before them standing at least 2 ATR below the highest close of the 5 sessions ending there. Rule 3W-2 is the mirror. A shape this specific may simply not occur on two gold series in a decade; this page cannot say whether the cause is the rule or the gold market, and it does not claim either. It says what was measured: zero.

What the three candles cannot tell you

The three candles cannot tell you whether the move will continue. They only show that momentum was strong for three sessions. The next session may be different. The pattern also cannot tell you how far price will go. That is a question about the future, and the chart only has the past.

The three candles are a description of what price has already done. They do not predict what price will do next. A pattern describes what price has already done and does not predict what it will do next. That is the plainest way to say it, and it applies to every pattern on this site.

Checking the zero yourself

A page that reports nothing found should be checkable too. The rules are quoted in numbers above, so a reader can scan a daily chart of the SPDR gold fund or of gold futures for three consecutive up candles, each with a body of at least 0.6 ATR, each opening inside the previous body and closing above its close, with almost no upper shadow, after a fall of 2 ATR over five sessions. Most runs of three white candles fail on the shadow or on the opening condition. The crows are the mirror and fail the same way.

The point of the exercise is not to prove the rule right. It is to show that the zero is a statement about a definition, and that anyone who thinks the definition too strict can say which number they would change. This site does not change the numbers after the fact.

What a looser definition would change

Many sources define three white soldiers loosely: three long up candles in a row, with little more said. A search written that way would find many runs on gold, because three strong sessions in a row are not rare. This site did not write it that way, because a loose definition lets the reader and the writer disagree about what was found.

The rule here adds an opening condition, a shadow limit and a prior fall, and each addition removes cases. Whether the removed cases were the ones that mattered is a question the page cannot answer, and it does not pretend to. It reports that, written this way, the soldiers and the crows did not occur on these two series between November 2016 and November 2026.

Reading the empty row

The overview picture on the home page lists the eight models of the site in rows under a line of the fund's closes. The rows for the three white soldiers and the three black crows are empty and marked 0 found, while the row for the weekend gap carries dozens of ticks. An empty row is part of the result, not a missing picture, and it is shown at the same size as the others.

Words used on this page

ATR is the average true range of the last 14 sessions: the usual size of one day's movement, in dollars, at that moment. A body is the distance between a candle's open and its close. A shadow is the part of the range outside the body. Formed means that a rule's last condition was met at a close; before that, the shape is not counted. Soldiers and crows are the names for the up and down versions. Each of these words has a number behind it in the rule quoted above, which is why a reader can check the page against any daily chart without a special tool.