After one strong trend candle, a cross (doji) appears, sitting entirely inside the prior body. The drop from clear momentum into complete indecision speaks of reversal more strongly than an ordinary Harami.
The Harami Cross is a reversal pattern in which the second candle of a Harami is not a small body but a cross (a doji).
The first candle is a large-bodied candle in the direction of the running trend. The second is a doji that sits entirely inside that large body, with its open and close nearly on top of each other.
Price that had been running one way the day before drops, the next day, into complete indecision that can commit to neither up nor down. The size of that drop is the heart of the Harami Cross.
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"Harami" is the Japanese word for pregnant, picturing a small second candle (the child) nested inside a large first candle (the mother). When the child is a doji, an open-equals-close cross, the pattern becomes a Harami Cross.
An ordinary Harami has a small but still slightly directional body on the second candle. When that second candle becomes a doji, even the lean disappears. A perfect balance arriving right after a strong body. Because of that extreme contrast, the Harami Cross is considered a more reliable reversal signal than a plain Harami.
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