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Candlestick patterns / Tweezer top
// bearish reversal · two candles

Tweezer top: sellers defended a level twice.

A tweezer top is two consecutive candles that print the same (or nearly the same) high. The first candle pushes up, prints its high, and gets sold off. The next candle tries again, hits the same wall, and fails. Two attempts, both rejected — the level held.

// shape
  • Two adjacent candles. Either color combination.
  • The high (often the upper-wick high) is the same on both.
  • Stronger when the second candle is red.
  • Best at a known resistance level after an extended rally.
// what it signals

What a tweezer top actually means.

Markets test levels. A tweezer top is the visible artifact of a level being tested twice in immediate succession and holding both times. That's information: there's a price at which sellers consistently outnumber buyers, and the market has just confirmed it.

The signal is much stronger when the level being defended already had meaning — a previous swing high, a round number, a moving average, the prior day's high. A tweezer top in the middle of nowhere is just a coincidence; a tweezer top on a known resistance is a confirmation.

The third candle is the trigger. If it opens below candle 2's close and continues down, the reversal has follow-through. If it gaps or opens back above the level, the test failed and momentum continues.

// when it fails

When the tweezer top doesn't work.

// how thesis uses it

How Thesis trades tweezer tops.

Thesis fires the tweezer-top detector on every 1-hour close. When it triggers, support/resistance levels are part of the AI prompt, so the model can weigh whether the tweezer is at a meaningful level or random chop. Trend, RSI, news sentiment, and regime all factor in before a short gets placed.

Tweezers are particularly susceptible to chop and false signals, which is why this layered confirmation matters more for them than for higher-conviction patterns. See how the AI layer works.

// related patterns

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