Patterns

Ascending, descending, symmetrical. When price converges toward a single point, what are participants waiting for? A triangle is a record of consensus dissolving.

The trap of mistaking a brief, automatic rebound after a sharp drop for a genuine reversal. The bounce fails, selling resumes, and price breaks to new lows. Even a dead cat bounces if dropped from high enough.

A corridor where price oscillates between a trendline and a parallel return line. Fading the rails and trading the breakout are two different strategies built on the same two lines.

Price oscillating between parallel horizontal support and resistance. Trading inside the range and waiting for the breakout are two completely different strategies for the same shape.

The most famous reversal pattern. Three peaks marking the limit of a trend, the neckline, how to measure the target, and the trap of the 'too-clean' head and shoulders.

Two peaks, two troughs. The simplest reversal pattern, marking 'the failure of the second attempt'. Neckline, target, and the moment the M or W completes.

Three attempts, three failures. Rare to appear, but heavier in conviction. A more robust reversal than the double top.

A pause after a sharp move. The shorter the more trustworthy; the longer the more it dissolves. Continuation patterns measured from the flagpole.

Rising wedge bearish, falling wedge bullish. When two converging lines tilt the same way, the trend is already short of breath.

A gentle U-curve drawn over weeks or months — and its inverted twin. Reversal without shock; the quiet record of holdings changing hands.

A gentle lead-in, a speculative bump that balloons above trend, then a break of the lead-in trendline into a sharp reversal. Bulkowski's three-phase pattern, read through market psychology.

The first leg and the second leg of a trend tend to be the same size. Project the first leg's range from the breakout of the consolidation to read the target. Works for advances and declines alike.

A break above resistance or below support that snaps back almost instantly and reverses. The anatomy of a failed breakout, and how to fade it using the trapped side's stops.

The basic building block of harmonics: a four-point reversal pattern. A first leg, a correction, and an extension are tied together by Fibonacci ratios, marking the potential reversal zone at D. The crowd's estimate is mirrored in both price and time symmetry.

After a new high, if price cannot exceed that high for a set period, the consolidation range locks in as one box. Buy when price clears the box top on volume, with the stop at the box bottom. A trend-following method that lets profits run while ratcheting the stop up box by box.

A sharp spike reversal that runs almost vertically up (or down) and turns at once, with no rounding top, base, or distribution phase. The crowd's conviction flips in an instant, producing a reversal that is fast and steep.

Two adjacent long spikes that stand side by side like a pair of pipes, marking a sharp reversal that resolves fast. Most reliable on the weekly chart with volume, it captures the moment a crowd's capitulation and short covering cross at once.

A U-shaped cup, a small handle along its rim. The continuation pattern popularised by William O'Neil — the last shake-out after a long round-trip.

Common, breakaway, runaway, exhaustion. A gap is the admission that yesterday's price no longer lives in anyone's mind — volume and position tell its meaning.

A cluster of bars isolated from prior and subsequent price by gaps on both sides. Participants stranded on the island, with no path back, force the reversal forward fast.

The triangle inverted — range widening over time. Higher highs and lower lows together; a record of emotional extremes amplifying.

A broadening that turns into a triangle — emotional explosion giving way to fatigue and surrender. Rare, subjective, and almost always at a top.

A harmonic reversal pattern linking five points XABCD by Fibonacci ratios. When the final D lands on the 0.786 retracement PRZ, the crowd that has been measuring the overshoot stops, and the reversal begins.

A five-point XABCD harmonic reversal. The endpoint D extends to 1.272 to 1.618 of XA, pushing past the origin X to reverse at an overshot extremity. That deep depth reflects the last chase into a stretched trend and its exhaustion.

A five-point XABCD harmonic reversal. The tell is the asymmetry: a shallow retracement at B and a deep one at D. Fade the reversal at the deep D zone with the stop just beyond X, which keeps risk tightly capped.

It targets a reversal at the single overstretched point where the crowd is sure the move will never stop. Of all the harmonics, the crab carries D the farthest, making it the most extreme reversal.

A five-point harmonic reversal pattern drawn as XABCD. After C extends beyond the origin X, price retraces to the 0.786 of XC, and the reversal is sought at that point D. Measuring D against XC rather than XA is what sets it apart from every other harmonic.

A reversal pattern of three symmetrical drives into a top or bottom. Each drive extends by a Fibonacci ratio and the corrections between them retrace by a Fibonacci ratio. When the three drives line up symmetrically in price and in time, the completion of the third drive marks a reversal from an exhausted trend.

A five-point equilibrium reversal pattern codified by Bill Wolfe. Wave 5 briefly overshoots the trendline, marking the reversal, while price is drawn back toward the line joining points 1 and 4.

A reversal pattern, a variant of the head and shoulders. Price makes a new high, then breaks the most recent swing low to wreck the structure, and finally pulls back to the left shoulder's high. It reads the smart-money push for stop orders sitting above the prior high.

A rare, high-reliability bullish continuation pattern: price nearly doubles in about two months, then holds in a shallow, brief consolidation. The shallower the pullback and the more intact the momentum, the stronger the buyers' conviction.

A continuation pattern shaped like a J laid on its side: price rolls down into a rounded bottom and lifts back out. It resembles a cup but is asymmetric, and the crowd's hesitation and re-acceleration are written into the curve.

A sharp reversal where two long-tailed spikes sit side by side with a single bar between them. The lone middle bar makes it gentler than a pipe, but the crowd's memory of being rejected twice at the same level anchors the turn.