Three white soldiers: steady, disciplined advance, one session at a time. Three black crows: the same discipline, downward. And a rare third shape — three stars in the south, three candles quietly shrinking instead of marching.
The Sakata ledgers name a steady three-session advance aka sanpei — «three red soldiers» — and its mirror kuro sanba — «three black crows» — marching, disciplined moves, distinct from any single dramatic candle.
Bar charts show three closes trending the same direction easily enough — but the body-containment and shrinking-shadow criteria that define the rare third shape are almost invisible without real candle bodies.
Steve Nison's 1991 catalog carries all three into English — noting that soldiers and crows are strong and common, while three stars in the south is explicitly flagged as rare — few chartists ever see a clean example.
Soldiers and crows remain widely watched momentum signals on any liquid market. Three stars in the south is still a genuine rarity — more a museum piece than an active signal.
Three consecutive long green candles, each closing higher, each opening inside the prior candle's body, with small upper shadows — a steady, disciplined advance, not a single violent spike.
Three consecutive long red candles, each closing lower, each opening inside the prior body, small lower shadows — typically after an advance, a strong, steady reversal signal.
Three small, shrinking black candles at the bottom of a decline, each with a smaller range than the last, losing their shadows — a quiet sign selling pressure is fading, not a violent reversal.
In the weeks following the March 2020 low, several stretches of three or more steady advancing sessions in a row mark the early recovery — disciplined progress, not a single violent spike.
Near the January 2018 high, three steady declining sessions mark the first real crack in the multi-year uptrend.
Amid the August 2015 volatility, a sequence of shrinking, quieting sessions near the low hints at fading selling pressure days before the bounce — schematic in style, not a claimed textbook-perfect instance of the rare pattern.
Three consecutive sessions each close higher than the last, each opening within the prior candle's body, each with only a small upper shadow. What is this?
The same setup appears, but each candle has a large upper shadow and a shrinking body compared to the last. Is this still three white soldiers?
At the bottom of a long decline, three candles print with shrinking ranges and disappearing shadows, each smaller than the last. What is this, and how common is it?
Three sessions, watched as they happen. The march builds tick by tick on the left — and the mark it leaves in the ledger on the right. Clean discipline off a low — and the near-miss that gave the game away.
A tape ending in three candles moving the same way. Weigh the discipline — steady opens, small shadows, real progress each time — then call it: long, short, or stand aside.
The classic error is counting any three same-colored candles in a row as soldiers or crows. The discipline is to check the discipline itself — steady opens, small shadows, real progress each time — and grade three stars in the south by shrinkage, not drama.
Three soldiers and three crows are conviction repeated three times running — no single dramatic candle, just steady, disciplined progress in one direction. Three stars in the south is their quiet opposite: not conviction, but exhaustion, shrinking a little more with every candle. All three remind you that three candles read together can say more than any one of them alone.
«Dripping water penetrates the stone.»