White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern – What Is And How To Trade

Everything that you need to know about the White Marubozu candlestick pattern is here.

Today you’ll learn:

• What Is The White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern
• How To Identify The White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern
• Variants of the White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern
• How To Trade The White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern
• Strategies To Trade The White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern
  • Strategy 1: Pullbacks On Naked Charts
  • Strategy 2: Trading The White Marubozu With Support Levels
  • Strategy 3: Trading The White Marubozu With Moving Averages
  • Strategy 4: Trading The White Marubozu With RSI Divergences
  • Strategy 5: Trading The White Marubozu With Fibonacci
  • Strategy 6: Trading The White Marubozu With Pivot Points
• What Is The Success Rate Of The White Marubozu Pattern?
• This is what you learned today
• Learn More

What Is The White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern

The White Marubozu is a Japanese candlestick pattern.

It’s a bullish reversal pattern.

Usually, it appears after a price decline and shows rejection from lower prices.

The pattern is bullish because we expect to have a bull move after the White Marubozu appears at the right location.

It’s a reversal pattern because before the White Marubozu appears we want to see the price going down, thus it’s also a frequent signal of the end of a trend.

The White Marubozu pattern is also a mirrored version of the Black Marubozu candlestick pattern.

How To Identify The White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern

The White Marubozu candlestick pattern is formed by one single candle.

Here’s how to identify the White Marubozu candlestick pattern:

1. One single bullish candle
2. The body must be big
3. The wicks should be small or non-existent

It looks like this on your charts:

Variants of the White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern

The White Marubozu candlestick pattern may appear a little different on your charts.

There are three versions of the White Marubozu:

• Full: No wicks at the top or bottom
• Open: No wicks at the bottom, but a small wick at the top
• Close: No wicks at the top, but a small wick at the bottom

Here’s what it may look like on your charts:

How To Trade The White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern

To trade the White Marubozu candlestick pattern it’s not enough to simply find a candle with the same shape on your charts.

Let me explain.

What makes a pattern valid is not just the shape, but also the location where it appears.

This means that the same shape appearing at different locations may have different meanings.

When trading the White Marubozu, we want to see the price first going down, making a bearish move.

A White Marubozu appearing after this bearish move is a sign of a possible reversal to the upside.

It looks like this:

Now you’re thinking.

“When do I open my trade?”

It’s simple, the White Marubozu pattern is traded when the high of the candle is broken.

That’s your conservative trigger to go long.

It looks like this:

Now, you also want to protect yourself because when trading things don’t always move as we expect.

And for that, we use a stop loss.

There are several different types of stop losses.

The most common is to use the other side of the pattern to set it.

But wait, don’t jump into trading the White Marubozu right yet.

There are a few more things to know.

Ideally, to increase the accuracy, we want to trade the White Marubozu candlestick pattern by combining it with other types of technical analysis or indicators.

Here are a few strategies to trade the White Marubozu pattern.

Strategies To Trade The White Marubozu Candlestick Pattern

Strategy 1: Pullbacks On Naked Charts

As a bullish reversal pattern, the White Marubozu is a great pattern to watch for when the price is on an uptrend.

Just wait for a pullback to start, and then spot when the White Marubozu appears.

That often signs the end of the pullback and the start of the new leg to the upside.

Here’s an example:

Strategy 2: Trading The White Marubozu With Support Levels

Support and resistance levels are great places to find price reversals.

Since we are looking for moves to the upside, we want to trade the White Marubozu using support levels.

How does it work:

• Draw support levels on your charts
• Wait for the price to decline and hit the support level
• Check if a White Marubozu appears at that level
• Go long when the price breaks the high of the White Marubozu
• Set your stop loss and take profit levels, and expect a move to the upside

Here’s an example:

Strategy 3: Trading The White Marubozu With Moving Averages

Moving averages are great trading indicators to trade trends.

The idea here is to trade pullbacks to the moving average when the price is on an uptrend.

How does it work:

• Find an uptrend, with the price jumping above a moving average
• Wait for a decline in the price to the moving average
• Check if a White Marubozu appears at the moving average
• Go long when the price breaks the high of the White Marubozu
• Set your stop loss and take profit levels, and expect another leg to the upside

It looks like this:

Strategy 4: Trading The White Marubozu With RSI Divergences

This is a bit different from the other trading strategies.

To find a bullish RSI Divergence we want to see the price on a downtrend first, making lower lows and lower highs.

Here’s how it works:

• Find a downtrend
• Mark the lows that the price makes after each leg to the downside
• At the same time compare the price lows with the RSI indicator
• When you see the RSI making higher lows while the price making lower lows, you found your divergence
• Now you wait until a White Marubozu appears at a price lower low, aligned with an RSI higher low.
• Go long when the price breaks the high of the White Marubozu
• Set your stop loss and take profit levels, and expect a move to the upside

Here’s an example:

Strategy 5: Trading The White Marubozu With Fibonacci

Another popular way of trading the White Marubozu candlestick is using the Fibonacci retracement tool.

Fibonacci shows retracement levels where the price will tend to revert frequently.

Depending on the strength of the trend, different levels are more likely to work better with the White Marubozu pattern. Here you can learn more about the different Fibonacci retracement levels.

Here’s how the strategy works:

• You want to see the price on an uptrend
• Then you wait for a decline, they always happen at some point
• Pick your Fibonacci tool and draw the levels from the low to the high of the move
• When the price hits a Fibonacci level and prints a White Marubozu, that’s what you are waiting for
• Go long when the price breaks the high of the White Marubozu
• Set your stop loss and take profit levels, and expect a move to the upside

Strategy 6: Trading The White Marubozu With Pivot Points

Pivot Points are automatic support and resistance levels calculated using math formulas.

If you are day trading, the Daily Pivot Points are the most popular, although the Weekly and Monthly are frequently used too.

Here’s how to trade the White Marubozu pattern with Pivot Points:

• Activate the Pivot Points indicator on your charts
• Check which Pivot Points are under the price, those will tend to work as a support
• Ideally, you want to see the price on an uptrend, although is not required
• Wait for a decline of the price to a Pivot Point level
• At that level, you want to see a White Marubozu pattern appearing, meaning that the level is being rejected
• Go long when the price breaks the high of the White Marubozu
• Set your stop loss and take profit levels, and expect a move to the upside

What Is The Success Rate Of The White Marubozu Pattern?

According to the Encyclopedia of Candlestick Charts by Thomas N. Bulkowski (link), the White Marubozu candlestick pattern has a success rate of 71%.

This is what you learned today

• The White Marubozu is a single candle pattern.
• To be valid, it must appear after a move to the downside.
• It’s a bullish reversal pattern, meaning that it signs a potential reversal to the upside.
• To increase the accuracy, you can trade the White Marubozu using pullbacks, moving averages, and other trading indicators.
• The success rate of the White Marubozu pattern is 71%.

Now I want to hear from you.

Do you trade the White Marubozu candlestick pattern?

Let me know in the comments below.

Learn More

• List of all candlestick patterns explained