Outside bar pattern
An outside bar is a session whose range contains the whole of the previous bar's: a higher high and a lower low in one day. Both sides' levels were broken, and the close is the verdict.
The geometry is engulfment of the full range. Today traded above yesterday's high and below yesterday's low in the same session, so both boundaries the previous bar established were violated, stops above were run, stops below were run, and everyone positioned off yesterday's extremes was tested. It is the inside bar's opposite: instead of the argument going quiet, it went everywhere at once. The bar itself is violence without a verdict, and the verdict is wherever the session closed.
The close is what the bullish-outside-bar scan reads, taking an outside bar that resolves with a green close on the logic that a session which printed a lower low and still finished up found real buyers at the bottom, with whoever sold that low now trapped above. The same bar closing weak tells the mirror story. Volume sharpens either reading, since a range that swallowed the prior day on heavy participation means both sides were tested with size present.
Outside bars are ambiguous by construction. A session that broke both extremes gave ammunition to both narratives, and the close, while the best single summary of it, is one print at the end of a chaotic day. Follow-through the next session confirms or retires the verdict more often than the bar decides anything by itself. The scan page's replay puts the close-based reading on trial across 250 past sessions, close to close and before any costs.
In Sift
Written as pattern is outside_bar. A working scan — outside bars swallowing the prior session on above-average volume:
where pattern is outside_bar and rel_volume > 1.21
of the 500 most-traded NSE stocks match today, as of 25 Sept 2026
Scans that use it
Prebuilt scans in the library whose query reads this pattern — each with a hit-rate replay over the last 250 sessions.
Common questions
What does an outside bar mean?
That one session overwhelmed the previous one in both directions, a higher high and a lower low in the same day. Both sides' stops were run and both arguments were tested. The bar itself is neutral, the close is read as the session's verdict on which side absorbed the other, and follow-through the next day carries most of the confirmation.
Is an outside bar the same as an engulfing candle?
No, though they rhyme. An engulfing pattern compares bodies, the open-to-close ranges, and requires opposite colours across the two bars. An outside bar compares full ranges: today's high above and low below yesterday's, wicks included, any colour. An outside bar can contain an engulfing pattern, and a wide-ranging day can qualify as one without the other.