Breakaway (CDLBREAKAWAY)

Summary

A five-candle reversal pattern: a long first candle, a same-colored second candle that gaps away from it by its real body, two more candles extending the move, and an opposite-colored fifth candle that closes back inside the gap. Emits a bullish signal (bottom reversal) or bearish signal (top reversal).

Notes

Does not verify the prior trend the pattern classically assumes (a breakaway matters most against a preceding move).
Bulkowski's data shows a directional asymmetry TA-Lib's symmetric output doesn't capture: bullish Breakaway reverses only 59% of the time ("near random"), while bearish Breakaway reverses 63% of the time overall. (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 when the fifth candle is white (bullish breakaway), -100 when it is black (bearish breakaway), 0 otherwise

Output Values

Value	Meaning
-100	Bearish Breakaway — a gap-up advance gets erased by a sharp reversal candle, signaling a top
0	No pattern
100	Bullish Breakaway — a gap-down decline gets erased by a sharp reversal candle, signaling a bottom

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: cdlbreakaway.c · cdlbreakaway.yaml

Native	File
C	`ta_CDLBREAKAWAY.c`
Rust	`cdlbreakaway.rs`
Java	`Core_CDLBREAKAWAY.java`

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

Aliases

Breakaway