Marubozu Candlestick Pattern

A marubozu is a single candle with no (or very small) shadows — the open equals the low and the close equals the high (bullish marubozu), or the open equals the high and the close equals the low (bearish marubozu). It represents complete dominance by one side of the market.

Reading a Marubozu

The marubozu tells a simple but powerful story: one side had total control from open to close. There was no meaningful retracement during the session.

• Bullish marubozu: opens at the low and closes at the high. Buyers dominated every moment.
• Bearish marubozu: opens at the high and closes at the low. Sellers had full control.

In practice, perfect marubozus (literally zero shadow) are rare. Most traders allow very small shadows — the key criterion is that the body constitutes the vast majority (90%+) of the total range.

A marubozu candle breaking through a key resistance or support level is one of the most convincing breakout confirmations in price action. The complete lack of wicks shows that there was no hesitation at the level.

Strategic Applications

• Breakout confirmation: a marubozu closing beyond a key level suggests the breakout is genuine and not a false break
• Support/Resistance creation: the open of a bullish marubozu often acts as future support; the open of a bearish marubozu becomes resistance
• Momentum filter: in Pine Script, you can measure the body-to-range ratio to identify marubozu-like candles and use them as trade filters

Marubozus are most useful as qualitative filters — they confirm conviction rather than predict direction.