A wide down candle followed by a small up candle contained entirely within it. Not a reversal so much as a sudden stop — the selling simply ran out of momentum.
The second body must sit inside the first body's range, high and low. The name comes from the Japanese for pregnant, describing the small candle held within the larger one.
Read it as deceleration rather than a turn. After a heavy down day, a narrow quiet session says sellers did not follow through — which is information, but weaker than buyers actively taking ground back.
The smaller the second candle relative to the first, the sharper the contrast in momentum. A second candle nearly as large as the first barely qualifies.
It fails often, and more often than the engulfing patterns. A pause in selling is not the same as buying, and many haramis are followed by the decline simply resuming after a day's rest.
Low-volume narrow days occur constantly, particularly around holidays and expiry weeks. Without a volume check most haramis are just quiet sessions.
Confirmation is essential here. Traders generally want the next session to close above the harami's high before treating the decline as genuinely interrupted.