Tweezer Top: matching highs and what they actually confirm

What it measures

A tweezer top is two consecutive bars whose highs land at essentially the same price, typically the first up and the second down.

It measures a level that rejected price twice in a row rather than once — slightly stronger evidence of resistance than a single failed push.

The name is visual: two bars with matched highs and mismatched bodies look like the two prongs of a pair of tweezers pinching the same point.

How it is calculated

These are the steps Basis performs, verified against the published definition.

1. 1

   Two consecutive bars with highs within a small tolerance of each other.

2. 2

   The classic version has the first bar closing up and the second closing down, describing a shift in control at the matched level.

3. 3

   The bodies and lower wicks are unconstrained — only the two highs have to agree, which is why the pattern is easy to spot but says relatively little on its own.

How to read it

• The matched high is a support/resistance observation more than a candlestick pattern — it says two attempts to go higher were both rejected at essentially the same price.
• It is meaningfully stronger when it appears after an extended advance than when the two highs are early in a move.
• A third or fourth bar later probing the same level and failing again compounds the read; a tweezer that never gets retested says less with time.
• Volume across the two bars adds a second dimension: a tweezer top on shrinking volume into the second bar reads as fading demand at the level, while similar volume on both suggests a genuine fight over control of it.

Where it misleads

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