High-Wave Candle (CDLHIGHWAVE)

Summary

Single-candle pattern: a short real body with both a very long upper and a very long lower shadow. Signals market indecision; the output sign reports only candle color, not a bullish/bearish direction. A hit marks indecision (long-legged candle); not directional - sign encodes only the candle's color.

Formula

One candle at index i. Hit when all hold: (1) short real body: real body < the BodyShort average; (2) very long upper shadow: upper shadow > the ShadowVeryLong average; (3) very long lower shadow: lower shadow > the ShadowVeryLong average. No color, gap, or trend condition.

Notes

Bulkowski's testing found the High-Wave candle acts as a reversal only 51% of the time — statistically indistinguishable from random — which he notes actually agrees with the pattern's theoretical meaning of pure indecision. (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 — On a hit, +100 when the candle is white (close >= open) or -100 when black (close < open); 0 otherwise. Sign denotes color, NOT bull/bear

Output Values

Value	Meaning
-100	High-Wave candle (black) — sharp indecision after a volatile session; sign marks the candle's color only, not a bullish/bearish call
0	No pattern
100	High-Wave candle (white) — sharp indecision after a volatile session; sign marks the candle's color only, not a bullish/bearish call

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: cdlhighwave.c · cdlhighwave.yaml

Native	File
C	`ta_CDLHIGHWAVE.c`
Rust	`cdlhighwave.rs`
Java	`Core_CDLHIGHWAVE.java`

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

Aliases

High-Wave Candle, High Wave