Rounding Bottom / Top (Saucer)

Overview

The rounding bottom is a reversal pattern in which price traces a gentle U-shape on its way back up. Widely called a "saucer" in English-language tradition (and 受け皿型 / 鍋底型 in Japanese), its inverted twin — the rounding top — is the dome-shaped reversal at a peak.

What separates this pattern from a V-bottom or a head and shoulders is the time axis. A V-bottom resolves in days or weeks; a rounding bottom takes weeks, months, sometimes more than a year to draw its curve. There is no sharp shock and no obvious turning point — only the realisation, in hindsight, that price has bottomed and risen.

The essence of this pattern is the absence of shock. Not panic but patience; not a spike but accumulation. In the market's deepest hours, holders quietly change hands — from "weak hands" to "strong hands" — and a smooth curve is the record of that transfer.