Kicking candlestick pattern: two marubozu and a gap

The kicking pattern, often called a "kicker", is one of the most forceful-looking formations in candlestick charting. It needs two marubozu, candles with long bodies and little or no shadow at either end, pointing in opposite directions, with a price gap between them. A black marubozu followed by a white marubozu that opens above the black candle's high is a bullish kicking pattern. A white marubozu followed by a black one that opens below the white candle's low is bearish.

What makes it striking is that the second candle does not trade anywhere inside the first. Overnight, the market's whole opinion flipped, and it stayed flipped from the opening bell to the close. Patterns like that usually follow news: an earnings surprise, a regulatory decision, a takeover bid.

Finabase runs two TA-Lib functions for this pattern, CDLKICKING and CDLKICKINGBYLENGTH, and both are labeled "Kicking" in the app. This page explains both, including the one situation in which they disagree. It also reports an unusual result from our two-year data study: across 60 large US stocks and ETFs and 29,760 daily bars, neither function fired even once.

Anatomy of a kicking pattern

Each half of the pattern is a marubozu, from the Japanese for "close-cropped", a candle with its shadows shaved off:

• A black marubozu opens at its high and closes at its low. Sellers were in control for the entire session.
• A white marubozu opens at its low and closes at its high. Buyers were in control for the entire session.

The kicking pattern places one of each side by side, with a gap:

1. First candle: a marubozu in one color.
2. Gap: the second candle's whole range sits beyond the first candle's whole range. For a bullish kicker, the second candle's low is above the first candle's high.
3. Second candle: a marubozu in the opposite color, running in the direction of the gap.

Most candlestick writers treat the kicker as a reversal that does not depend much on the prior trend. Its force comes from the gap and the two full-bodied candles, not from where it appears. Some guides add that it is most telling after an extended move.

The exact rules Finabase uses

Both TA-Lib functions share the same test for whether a kicking pattern exists. They differ only in how they assign its direction.

The marubozu test inside both functions is exactly the test TA-Lib's own CDLMARUBOZU uses: long body, both shadows tiny relative to the recent range. Neither function looks at the trend before the pattern.

How "by length" decides direction

CDLKICKINGBYLENGTH compares the two real bodies. Whichever is longer sets the sign: if the second body is strictly longer, the second candle's color wins; otherwise, including when the two bodies are exactly equal, the first candle's color wins.

Most of the time the two functions agree, because the second candle of a real kicker is usually the bigger one. They split only when the first marubozu is longer than the second:

In the illustration, a $4 black marubozu is followed by a $2 white marubozu that gaps above it. CDLKICKING sees a white second candle and returns +100. CDLKICKINGBYLENGTH sees that the black body is twice as long and returns −100. The reasoning behind the by-length version is that the larger session represents more conviction, so a small gap-up after a huge sell-off is weighed as a pause in the selling rather than a reversal. Neither view is proven; they are two ways of reading the same candles.

Why the pattern is so rare

Each requirement is common on its own, but stacking all of them is not. Over our 60 symbols and two years:

• TA-Lib's CDLMARUBOZU fired 1,227 times, so long, shadowless candles are not unusual.
• About 1,640 sessions had a low above the previous session's high, and about 1,410 had a high below the previous low, so full gaps do happen.
• But only 23 times were two marubozu back to back with opposite colors, and in none of those 23 was there a full gap between them.

The gap is the hard part. A real kicker means the market reverses overnight by more than the entire previous session's range, then trades in one direction all day without ever revisiting the open. On large, heavily traded US stocks a session that big, that clean and that one-directional right after such a gap is uncommon. Other markets, smaller stocks or other timeframes may produce the pattern more often; our study simply did not contain one.

The psychology of a kick

Think of the bullish version. Day one: the market falls from open to close, with sellers in total control, and the close is the low. That is usually the moment short-term traders feel most confident about further declines. Then something changes overnight. The next session opens above the entire prior day, so everyone who sold during day one is now losing money, and buyers keep pressing from the first trade to the last.

The pattern is persuasive because it shows trapped participants. Sellers from day one need to buy back, and buyers who missed the move need to chase. Both add fuel in the new direction. That logic explains why the kicker is often described as a strong signal. It also explains why it is rarely a candle-only phenomenon: something substantive almost always caused the overnight flip.

Confirming a kicking pattern

Because the second candle already moves decisively, practitioners focus less on the next day's direction and more on whether the gap holds:

• The gap stays open. For a bullish kicker, price should not trade back below the first candle's high. A filled gap is the clearest failure.
• Volume on the second candle well above average, consistent with genuine news rather than a thin-market quirk.
• A catalyst you can name. If the move came from an earnings report or another event, you can judge whether it changes the investment case.
• Momentum context. An Relative Strength Index (RSI): how to read and use it jumping from oversold to above 50 in one session matches the pattern's message.

Kicking compared with similar patterns

Separating lines and kicking are worth comparing directly. Both pair opposite colors. In separating lines the second candle opens where the first one opened and then runs away; in kicking the second candle opens beyond the first one's entire range.

An educational outline for a kicker

This is a hypothetical framework, not a recommendation, and it rests on no measured results from our data.

1. Identify the catalyst behind the gap and decide whether it plausibly matters for more than a day.
2. Use the gap as the risk line. For a bullish kicker, a close back below the first candle's high fills the gap and invalidates the pattern.
3. Expect the stop to be wide. Because the gap and the second body are both large, the distance to the invalidation level is large too, which means a smaller position for the same risk.

How Finabase shows kicking patterns

• Two studies, one name. Finabase offers both CDLKICKING and CDLKICKINGBYLENGTH as chart studies, and both are labeled Kicking. The links at the top of this page open each one separately on an AAPL chart. If you add both, the markers come from two different rules.
• Scanner. The candlestick scanner sorts each detection by the sign of TA-Lib's output: +100 on the Bullish list, −100 on the Bearish list. A kicker where the two functions disagree would appear as a bullish CDLKICKING and a bearish CDLKICKINGBYLENGTH on the same day.
• Signals-tab gauge. On a symbol's Signals tab each of the 61 candlestick patterns votes with the sign of its most recent non-zero reading in the past 8 bars. The two kicking functions are separate patterns, so a kicker casts two votes. When they agree the votes reinforce each other; when the first marubozu is longer, one says Buy and the other Sell, and they cancel. The group score is (buy − sell) ÷ (buy + sell + the smaller of the neutral count and the larger side).
• Expect to see it rarely. Given the data above, an empty scanner list for either function is the normal state.

Frequently asked questions

Is the kicking pattern bullish or bearish?

Either. A white marubozu gapping above a black one is bullish; a black marubozu gapping below a white one is bearish.

What is the difference between Kicking and Kicking by length?

Only the direction rule. CDLKICKING follows the second candle's color. CDLKICKINGBYLENGTH follows the color of the longer body. They agree whenever the second marubozu is the longer one.

Why do I never see kicking patterns on Finabase?

Because TA-Lib's definition needs two near-perfect marubozu and a full gap between them. On 60 large US stocks and ETFs over two years, that combination did not happen once.

Does the gap have to be between the bodies or the whole candles?

The whole candles. TA-Lib requires the second candle's low to clear the first candle's high (or the reverse for a bearish kicker), not just a gap between the bodies.

Summary

The kicking pattern pairs two opposite-colored marubozu with a full gap between them, a picture of sentiment reversing overnight and holding all day. Finabase detects it with two TA-Lib functions that share a test and a "Kicking" label but differ on direction: one follows the second candle, the other follows the longer body. Its strict definition makes it exceptionally rare. It did not appear in 29,760 daily bars on 60 large US names, so we cannot say how reliable it is. If you see one, the gap is the level that tells you whether it is working.