A bullish abandoned baby is a rare three-candle bullish reversal pattern that forms at the end of a downtrend. It starts with a large bearish candle, followed by a doji that gaps below it, and ends with a bullish candle that gaps above the doji.
The doji is left on its own between two gaps, which is where the name "abandoned" comes from. The pattern signals that selling pressure has run out and buyers are taking control.
What Is a Bullish Abandoned Baby Candlestick Pattern?
The bullish abandoned baby is a three-candle pattern that appears after a downtrend and signals a possible reversal to an uptrend. It is one of the Japanese candlestick patterns, and it tells you that sellers have lost control of price.
The middle candle is a doji, a candle whose open and close are equal or very close, which shows indecision between buyers and sellers. Traders call the doji the "baby". It is "abandoned" because a gap separates it from the candle before it and the candle after it, so its shadows touch neither neighbour.
The abandoned baby candlestick is rare. Thomas Bulkowski found only 293 examples in 4.7 million candles, and he ranks it 92nd of 103 candlestick patterns for how often it appears. When it does appear, the gaps on both sides make it easy to tell apart from other doji patterns.
How to Identify the Abandoned Baby Pattern on a Chart?
All five identification rules below have to hold to identify an abandoned baby candlestick pattern setup.
Measure both gaps on the shadows (wicks), and check the candle bodies as well. A doji that opens below the first candle and then trades back up into its lower shadow has closed the gap, and the pattern no longer counts.
Two details vary between sources. Most describe the first candle as large, and Bulkowski found that tall candles gave better results, though his identification rules accept a first candle of any size. Some traders also accept a very small body in place of a doji, as long as the gaps on both sides are still there.
Why Does the Bullish Abandoned Baby Pattern Form?
The pattern records a change in who controls price over three sessions. Each candle shows one step of that change.
First candle: Sellers are in full control. The large bearish candle shows heavy selling pressure, often from panic selling or bad news, and it closes near its low.
Doji: Price gaps lower on the next open, but sellers cannot push it further. The candle closes almost where it opened, which shows selling pressure has stalled and buyers are starting to match it.
Third candle: Buyers take control and price gaps above the doji. Traders who sold short at lower prices rush to buy back their positions, and this short covering adds to the buying pressure.
The gap above the doji also traps anyone who sold during the doji session. Those traders now hold losses, and their exits add further buying pressure as price rises.
How to Trade the Bullish Abandoned Baby Pattern?
Trading the abandoned baby pattern comes down to four decisions: where to enter, where to place the stop-loss, where to take profit and how to confirm the signal.
Where to Enter a Bullish Abandoned Baby Trade Setup
The standard entry is a buy stop order just above the high of the third candle. The order only fills if price keeps rising after the pattern completes, which filters out patterns that stall on the next session.
A stricter trigger is a close above the top of the whole pattern, which is usually the first candle's high. Bulkowski calls this the upward breakout. It confirms the reversal, but it gives a higher entry price and a wider stop-loss.
Where to Place the Stop-Loss on an Abandoned Baby Pattern
Place the stop-loss just below the doji's low. A close below the doji means sellers have pushed price back through the whole pattern, so the reversal has failed.
Because the third candle gaps up and is often tall, the distance from entry to the doji's low can be wide. Work out your position size from that distance: divide the amount you are willing to lose by the distance in price, and trade a smaller size when the distance is wider than usual.
A stop-loss order does not guarantee your exit price. If price gaps below it on the next open, the order fills at the first available price, and this slippage risk is highest on share CFDs held overnight and on any position held over a weekend.
How to Set a Profit Target After a Bullish Abandoned Baby
The pattern has no profit target of its own. Most traders use the nearest resistance level, such as a price area where the downtrend paused or the top of the last bounce.
Bulkowski notes that the uptrend after this pattern often does not last long, so a distant profit target is less likely to be reached. Check that the reward is at least equal to the risk before you place the order.
Confirming the Abandoned Baby Bullish Signal With Volume and RSI
A Volume breakout tells you whether the reversal has buyers behind it. A third candle with volume well above its recent average shows fresh buying pressure absorbing the sellers, which makes the signal stronger.
If the pattern forms on low volume, the reversal may only be sellers pausing, and the downtrend can resume once they return. Spot forex has no central exchange volume, so MT4 and MT5 show tick volume, the number of price changes in each candle, and you read it the same way.
The RSI (Relative Strength Index) adds a second check. An RSI reading below 30 on the first candle or the doji shows the downtrend was stretched, and an RSI that makes a higher low while price makes a lower low (bullish divergence) adds weight to the reversal.
Bullish Abandoned Baby Pattern Example
The chart below uses hypothetical prices on a daily share CFD chart to walk through each step. It uses a share CFD because shares gap between trading sessions, and the pattern needs two gaps.
Check the rules. Price was in a downtrend from 60.00. The doji's high of 49.60 is below the first candle's low of 50.00, and the third candle's low of 49.90 is above the doji's high, so both gaps are clear. Volume on the third candle was above its 20-day average.
Plan the trade. A buy stop order sits at 51.95, just above the third candle's high, and the stop-loss sits at 48.70, below the doji's low. That is a risk of 3.25 per share. The profit target is the 56.00 resistance level, where price paused before the last part of the downtrend, for a reward of 4.05 per share.
Size the position. With a $10,000 account and a 1% risk limit, the most you can lose is $100. Dividing $100 by the 3.25 risk gives 30 CFDs, so the trade risks $97.50 to make $121.50, a risk-to-reward ratio of about 1:1.25. Spreads, commission and overnight financing reduce these figures.
How Reliable Is the Bullish Abandoned Baby Pattern?
In Bulkowski's tests, the bullish abandoned baby acted as a bullish reversal about 70% of the time. He ranks it 13th of 103 candlestick patterns for reversal and 9th for overall performance.
Read the 70% figure carefully. It measures how often price broke out upward after the pattern, and it does not measure how many trades made money. Your own results depend on your entry, stop-loss, profit target and trading costs.
The sample is also small. With only 293 patterns found, some figures rest on very few cases, and Bulkowski warns that his bear market numbers, based on fewer than 20 examples, are unlikely to hold up.
His notes point to what improves the results. Patterns with tall candles did better, and so did patterns that formed within a third of the yearly low. He also found that the pattern tends to form at the end of short downtrends, and that the uptrend after it often does not last long.
What Are the Advantages and Limitations of the Abandoned Baby Candlestick?
Advantages of the Bullish Abandoned Baby
Clear rules: The gaps on both sides of the doji leave little room for opinion, so the pattern is easy to confirm once it forms.
Early signal: It forms at the low of the downtrend, so traders can enter near the start of a reversal or close short positions early.
Defined risk: The doji's low gives a clear place for the stop-loss.
Strong test results: Bulkowski ranks it 13th of 103 candlestick patterns for reversal.
Limitations of the Bullish Abandoned Baby
Rare: The strict gap rules mean you can watch one chart for a long time without seeing the pattern.
False signals: About 3 in 10 patterns in Bulkowski's data did not reverse, and patterns on low volume are more likely to fail.
No profit target: The pattern shows where to enter and where to exit on a loss, and nothing about where to take profit.
Short uptrend: The rally after the pattern is often brief, which limits how much a trade can make.
Sharp failures: When the pattern failed in a bear market, Bulkowski measured an average fall of 10.31% over the next 10 days, though from only 14 cases.
Bullish Abandoned Baby vs Bearish Abandoned Baby vs Morning Star
Two patterns are often confused with the bullish abandoned baby: its bearish mirror image and the morning star.
The bearish abandoned baby follows the same rules upside down: a large bullish candle, a doji that gaps above it, and a bearish candle that gaps below the doji. It signals a possible reversal from an uptrend to a downtrend.
The morning star has the same three-step shape without the full gaps. If the doji's shadows overlap either neighbour, the pattern may still qualify as a morning doji star, but it is not an abandoned baby.
When Does an Abandoned Baby Candle Appear in Forex and Stock Charts?
The pattern needs two gaps in a row: one between the first candle and the doji, and one between the doji and the third candle. Whether those gaps can form depends on how the market trades between sessions.
Shares and share CFDs close each day and reopen the next morning, so news released overnight can open price well away from the previous close. This is why abandoned babies appear mainly on daily share charts, and why most published candlestick statistics, including Bulkowski's, come from stock data.
Spot forex trades 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday, so each daily candle usually opens at or very near the previous close. The only regular gap comes at the weekly open after the weekend, which gives at most one of the two gaps the pattern needs, so a strict bullish abandoned baby on a forex daily chart is extremely rare.
Index and commodity CFDs sit in between. Many have a short daily trading break, so small gaps can appear between sessions, but gaps large enough to separate a whole doji are uncommon. On intraday charts, gaps inside a continuous session are rare in any market, so daily charts are where most traders find the pattern.
On a forex chart you will more often see a doji after a large bearish candle with no gap on either side. That shape shows the same stall in selling pressure, but it does not meet the abandoned baby rules, so the 70% figure does not apply to it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the abandoned baby pattern bullish or bearish?
Both versions exist. The bullish abandoned baby forms after a downtrend and signals a possible reversal higher, and the bearish abandoned baby forms after an uptrend and signals a possible reversal lower.
Can the middle candle of an abandoned baby be a small candle instead of a doji?
The standard definition uses a doji, and Bulkowski's rules require one. Some traders accept a very small body, but the gaps on both sides must still be there, or the pattern is closer to a morning star.
What happens if price closes below the doji after the pattern forms?
A close below the doji's low means the bullish abandoned baby has failed and sellers are back in control. Exit at the stop-loss and wait for a new signal instead of widening the stop-loss.
