The candle pattern gate looks at the last closed candle on a timeframe you name. It lets the entry through, or not, depending on a mode you choose.
What it does
You pick one of two modes:
- Must be present: the entry is blocked unless the last closed candle is the pattern you named.
- Must be absent: the entry is blocked if the last closed candle is that pattern.
The related detector
There is also a candle pattern detector, which is a different thing. Instead of filtering an entry, it creates one. It finds one of six candle patterns and fires from it:
- an inside bar (a candle inside the range of the one before)
- an outside bar (a candle that covers the whole range of the one before)
- the narrowest of the last four bars
- the narrowest of the last seven bars
- a bullish engulfing candle
- a bearish engulfing candle
It has two trigger modes:
- Breakout. The pattern candle sets a level at its own high and low. The signal comes when a later candle closes a number of ticks beyond one of them.
- Close direction. The pattern candle's own close is the signal, in the direction of its body. This is only offered for patterns whose candle points one way.
Gate or detector
The gate adds a candle condition on top of a detector you already have. The detector is for when the candle pattern is the setup.
What can go wrong
Both read closed candles on the timeframe you name on the block, not the one you happen to be looking at. If a rule seems to fire at odd moments, check the timeframe on the block.
Four-hour and daily candles
At four hours and one day, candles follow the futures trading day, not midnight. A daily candle is one trading session: from the 5pm Central open to the 4pm Central close the next afternoon.
Four-hour candles start at 5pm, 9pm, 1am, 5am, 9am and 1pm Central. The last one is three hours long, because the session closes at 4pm. On a holiday with an early close, the day's last candle ends at the early close.
Every other block reads the same candles at those lengths, in a backtest and live.