What is Pin Bar?

A candle with a long wick and small body — price pierced a level, was firmly rejected, and closed back away from it.

A pin bar is a candlestick with a long wick on one side and a small body pushed to the other end — the whole candle looks like a pin or a hammer. It records a probe and a rejection: price drove deep in one direction during the period, met heavy opposing orders, and was thrown back so decisively that it closed near the opposite extreme. A bullish pin bar has a long lower wick (the sellers were rejected); a bearish pin bar has a long upper wick (the buyers were rejected).

The pin bar is beloved by price action traders because it often is a liquidity sweep compressed into one candle: the wick pierces the obvious low or high where stops rest, collects them, and the close back inside shows who won the fight. Its reliability follows the usual law of location — a pin bar rejecting a higher-timeframe demand zone after a sweep is a quality signal, while pin bars floating mid-range are everywhere and mean little. Entries are commonly taken on the break of the pin bar's high or low with the stop beyond the wick, keeping the invalidation tied to the rejection itself.