A candle whose entire high-to-low range fits inside the previous candle. It marks contraction before the next expansion.
How to identify it
- High is lower than the prior high
- Low is higher than the prior low
- Prior (mother) bar is usually a wide-range bar
Entry
Enter on a break of the mother bar high or low, favoring the trend side.
Stop loss
Opposite side of the inside bar or mother bar.
Target
The mother bar range projected from the breakout.
Invalidation
Breakout fails and price closes back inside the mother bar.
Does it work for you?
Textbook reliability means little until you know your own numbers. Tag your inside bar trades in TradeZento and it shows your win rate, average win and loss, and P&L per trade for this pattern, so you know whether to keep it in your playbook.