Belt-hold (CDLBELTHOLD)

Summary

Single-candle pattern with a long real body that opens at (or near) its extreme. A bullish belt-hold is a long white candle with no/very short lower shadow; a bearish belt-hold is a long black candle with no/very short upper shadow. A white hit is bullish (opens at the low, closes strong); a black hit is bearish (opens at the high, closes weak).

Formula

One candle. Requires real body > BodyLong average (long body), then either: white body (close>=open) AND lower shadow < ShadowVeryShort average -> bullish; OR black body (close<open) AND upper shadow < ShadowVeryShort average -> bearish. No prior-trend or gap conditions are checked.

Notes

Does not verify the prior trend that the pattern's bullish/bearish reading classically assumes.
Bulkowski's testing ranks the bullish Belt-Hold's 71% reversal rate 11th of 103 patterns for pure reversal reliability (bearish reverses 68% of the time) — though its overall post-breakout performance rank is a more middling 62nd/63rd of 103. (thepatternsite.com)

Inputs

inOpen — Open price of each bar
inHigh — High price of each bar
inLow — Low price of each bar
inClose — Close price of each bar

Outputs

outInteger — +100 for a bullish (white) belt-hold, -100 for a bearish (black) belt-hold, 0 otherwise

Output Values

Value	Meaning
-100	Bearish belt-hold — opens at (or near) the high and sells off hard into the close, showing strong seller conviction
0	No pattern
100	Bullish belt-hold — opens at (or near) the low and rallies hard into the close, showing strong buyer conviction

Properties

Numerical Stability: Start-Independent


☐ Overlap Input
✅ Independent Y-Axis i
✅ Candlestick i
☐ Can Output NaN or ±Inf
☐ Identity at Period 1

Implementation

TA-Lib Definition: cdlbelthold.c · cdlbelthold.yaml

Native	File
C	`ta_CDLBELTHOLD.c`
Rust	`cdlbelthold.rs`
Java	`Core_CDLBELTHOLD.java`

TA-Lib is also available for Python, R and more using a wrapper.

Aliases

Belt-hold, Belt Hold Line