A single-candle shape: a small body sitting near the top with a long tail hanging below, like a hammer. It records a period where price got pushed way down but climbed most of the way back before the close. It triggers when the lower wick is more than twice the body (the gap between open and close) and the upper wick is shorter than the body. The candle's color doesn't matter — green or red both count.

Does Hammer really mean a bounce (up)?

That is the common reading. This signal has fired 978 times on BTC 4h; across the most recent 300, price hit +0.25% first about 47% of the time. A historical probability, not a guarantee.

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What is Hammer? — chart signal explained

A single-candle shape: a small body sitting near the top with a long tail hanging below, like a hammer. It records a period where price got pushed way down but climbed most of the way back before the close.

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When does it fire? — BaroBara criteria

It triggers when the lower wick is more than twice the body (the gap between open and close) and the upper wick is shorter than the body. The candle's color doesn't matter — green or red both count.

How traders usually read it

The long tail suggests someone stepped in and bought the dip aggressively, so when it appears near the bottom of a decline, many traders hope it's the first hint of a bounce.

What to watch out for

Barobara only checks the shape, not where it appears — the identical candle at the top of a rally (what classic charting calls a "hanging man," a bearish warning) also registers as a hammer here. And in a hard downtrend, hammers can keep printing while the price keeps falling.

What the data actually shows (BTC 4h)

The common reading is a bounce (up) — but what actually happened matters more. This signal has fired 978 times on BTC 4h; across the most recent 300, price reached the small target (+0.25%) first about 47% of the time. Widen the target to ±1% and it becomes about 51%. A historical probability, not a guaranteed direction — and it shifts with market regime.

Odds and expected value — with symmetric target and stop (±)

Exactly the barobara framing: which side got hit first, +X% or −X%. Target and stop are set to the same %, and the win rate is how often the upside (+X%) was reached first.

Target = stop (±)	Win rate (+ first)	EV (before fees)
±0.25%	47%	-0.02%
±0.5%	52%	+0.02%
±0.75%	52%	+0.03%
±1%	51%	+0.02%
±1.5%	46%	-0.12%
±2%	46%	-0.16%

📐 How to read this. EV assumes a symmetric ±X% target and stop: EV = target × (win rate − loss rate), so any win rate above 50% gives a positive EV. Fees are NOT included — they differ by exchange and order type (maker/taker). In reality fees come off the top, and the smaller the target, the bigger the bite fees take (at ±0.25%, even modest fees eat much of the edge). Timeouts (neither side hit within the horizon) are classified by the closing side, and an asymmetric target/stop changes all of these numbers — setting-dependent references, not absolutes.

Broken down by market regime

⚠️ This table uses a different basis than the symmetric (±) table above — a small +0.25% target with a wide −3.0% stop (fees included). The small target makes the win rate look high while EV is often negative — exactly what signal groups hide. And the same signal behaves differently across regimes.

Regime	Win rate (+0.25% target)	EV (−3.0% stop)	Sample
Bear market	85%	-0.32%	N=307
Sideways	88%	-0.15%	N=339
Bull market	88%	-0.19%	N=315

Recent occurrences

How far price actually moved the last few times this signal fired (MFE = maximum favorable excursion).

Date	MFE	Result
2026-06-04	0.14%	— 🔴 stopped
2026-06-06	5.29%	✅ hit
2026-06-08	1.45%	✅ hit 🔴 stopped
2026-06-09	1.04%	✅ hit 🔴 stopped
2026-06-10	3.64%	✅ hit
2026-06-15	2.07%	✅ hit
2026-06-16	1.25%	✅ hit 🔴 stopped
2026-06-18	0.21%	— 🔴 stopped

🦫 See whether this signal is live right now — and verified odds for other signals and combos — on win-rate picks. Cut trading costs with fee cashback.

Data: full history since 2017 · 19448 bars · ~9.1/month · win rate from the most recent 300 occurrences. For reference, not a prediction. A signal is a historical probability, not a guaranteed direction.

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