Marubozu
A shadowless candle that shows one side owned the session from the opening bell to the close — one of the clearest signals of dominant trend momentum.
Definition
A Marubozu (from Japanese, meaning "close-cropped" or "bald") is a candlestick that has no upper or lower shadows — the open equals one extreme of the session and the close equals the other. In a Bullish Marubozu, the open is the session low and the close is the session high, showing buyers controlled price from start to finish without sellers ever pushing back. In a Bearish Marubozu, the open is the session high and the close is the session low, showing sellers maintained complete dominance throughout. Because there are no shadows, the Marubozu is visually a plain, solid rectangle — the antithesis of indecision patterns like the Doji.
Why it matters
The Marubozu is one of the most emphatic single-candle signals available to a technical trader. On the NSE and BSE, a Bullish Marubozu on high volume after a breakout from consolidation is a strong indication that institutional buying is supporting the move. Conversely, a Bearish Marubozu after a breakdown signals that sellers have no hesitation and there is no intraday bounce for trapped buyers to escape. In the F&O context, traders often use the Marubozu to gauge conviction before entering direction trades: if Bank Nifty prints a large Bearish Marubozu on expiry day, it is a very different signal from a small candle with long shadows. The pattern also sets up clear levels — for a Bullish Marubozu, the open becomes a natural stop reference; for Bearish, the open becomes resistance.
How it works
A strict Marubozu has zero shadows, but in practice traders accept candles with very minor shadows — a shadow no more than 5 to 10 percent of the total candle length — as near-equivalent. The key criteria are: a large real body that spans most of the session's range, an open that is at or very near one price extreme, and a close at or near the other extreme. The candle is directionally labelled by its colour: green (or white) for bullish, red (or black) for bearish. A partial Marubozu is also recognised — a candle that has a shadow on one side but not the other — and is labelled either a Closing Marubozu (no shadow on the closing side) or an Opening Marubozu (no shadow on the opening side), each with slightly different interpretations for momentum.
Example
Suppose a hypothetical NSE large-cap stock announces strong quarterly earnings after market close. The next session it opens at 2,100, which is also the intraday low, and surges all day to close at 2,270, which is also the intraday high — a perfect Bullish Marubozu spanning 170 points with no shadows whatsoever. Volume on that day is three times the 20-day average. A momentum trader might interpret the 2,100 open as the line in the sand: as long as price holds above it on subsequent sessions, the bullish trend is intact. A drop below 2,100 would indicate the Marubozu momentum has failed. These are hypothetical figures and do not represent any actual stock.
See momentum confirmed by option flow
TradePulse's live option chain shows call and put open interest build-up so you can see whether F&O participants are backing the Marubozu's directional signal.