Harami
Indecision2 sessions
A big session, then a small one that fits inside it. The trend did not extend — the first sign of a stall.
The shape: A real body, then a much smaller body entirely inside it
What it is
The second session's body sits entirely within the first session's body and is at most half its size. The range contracted sharply from one day to the next.
Its direction reads off the bar it sits inside: after a down bar it is a bullish harami, after an up bar a bearish one.
It says less than an engulfing and says it earlier. Nothing was taken back — the move simply failed to continue.
How to read it
The containing bar's high and low are the range. The harami is a compression inside it, and the resolution is which side gets left.
The smaller the inside bar relative to the outside one, the sharper the contraction it describes.
On the chart: a triangle below the bar for a bullish reading, above it for a bearish one, a diamond for indecision. Hover any mark to see the pattern and what qualified it — the level it formed at and the move it followed.
Using it on the wheel
Contraction after a run is one of the conditions where premium sellers look at a name again — the move that produced the volatility has paused while the volatility often has not fully settled.
As with the doji, it is context rather than evidence. The strike, the cushion and the quality of the underlying are still what the position is made of.
Like everything in this guide, these are descriptions of conditions and reference levels — context for your own decisions, not instructions to trade.