Chart shapes

The W. Price falls to a low, bounces, falls back to roughly the same low, and turns up again — sellers failed twice at the same floor. The pattern completes when price closes above the middle peak (the neckline); that level is where traders measure the target from.

A double bottom with one more test of the floor. More touches of the same level generally means a more meaningful break when it finally gives — but it also means a longer base, so the breakout is what matters, not the third bounce.

Three lows: a shallow one, a deeper one, then a shallow one again, with two rallies to a common level between them. The deep middle low is the head; the flat line across the rally highs is the neckline. A close above the neckline completes it — widely cited as one of the more dependable reversal shapes.

A slow, smooth U with no sharp turn — panic draining out over weeks or months and steady buying replacing it. Because the turn is gradual there's no single trigger candle; traders wait for price to reclaim the level the decline started from.

A rounding bottom that returns to its starting level, then a small, shallow pullback — the handle — before the breakout. The handle is the tell: a brief, orderly dip on light volume, not a slide back into the cup. Entry is conventionally above the handle's high.

Price keeps drifting lower, but each leg down is smaller than the last and the two boundary lines converge. Selling is exhausting itself rather than accelerating — these usually resolve upward, out through the falling upper line.

A sharp capitulation low with no basing at all — straight down, straight back up, often around a panic or a news shock. The hardest reversal to trade, because it only looks like a V once the right-hand side is already built.

The M. Price rallies to a high, pulls back, retests the same high and fails — buyers ran out at the same ceiling twice. It completes on a close below the valley between the two peaks.

Three failed attempts at the same ceiling. The more often a level rejects price, the more supply is presumed to be sitting there — but the pattern only counts once price breaks the shared low beneath it.

Three peaks — a middle one higher than the two beside it — sitting on a common support line drawn across the intervening lows. The classic top: each rally is weaker than the last, and the close below the neckline is the signal, not the right shoulder itself.

A smooth inverted U — buying pressure fading gradually rather than breaking. Slow to confirm and easy to mistake for a pause, so it's usually read alongside declining volume through the curve.

The cup and handle upside down: a rounded top, a return to the level the rally started from, then a weak bounce (the handle) before price breaks lower. Read the same way as its bullish twin, in reverse.

Price still makes higher highs, but the gains shrink and the two boundary lines squeeze together — a rally running on fumes. These typically break down through the lower line, and the fall is often quick because there's little support built on the way up.

Swings widen, then narrow again, outlining a diamond — volatility spiking at a top and then compressing as the market runs out of buyers. Rarer than the other reversals and easy to over-fit; the break below the lower right edge is the confirmation. A diamond bottom is the same shape at a low.

A near-vertical rally (the pole), then a tidy drift lower between two parallel lines. Profit-taking, not a reversal — the tell is that the drift is shallow and on lighter volume. The trigger is a close back above the upper flag line.

A steep drop followed by a shallow upward drift in a tight channel — a bounce that never gets going. It completes on a close below the lower flag line, resuming the fall.

Same setup as a bull flag, but the pause is a small symmetrical triangle instead of a channel — the range squeezes shut before the next leg up. Note that pennants are among the weaker-performing patterns in published studies, so the prior trend and the breakout volume carry most of the weight.

A sharp drop, a brief coiling pause, then continuation lower. The tighter and shorter the coil, the more it reads as a pause rather than a base.

A flat ceiling with a rising floor beneath it. Buyers keep paying up on each dip while the same sell orders sit at one price — when that supply is finally absorbed, price breaks out through the top.

A flat floor with falling highs pressing down on it. Sellers get more impatient each time while one bid holds the line — the break is usually downward through that floor.

Lower highs and higher lows converging to a point — a coiling spring with no directional bias of its own. It most often breaks in the direction of the trend that preceded it, which is why the chart to the left of the triangle matters more than the triangle.

Price bouncing between a flat ceiling and a flat floor — supply and demand in balance while the market waits for something. Traders either fade the edges while it holds or trade the eventual break; the range height sets the conventional target.

Higher highs and higher lows running between two parallel rising lines — an orderly uptrend. Useful mainly as a map: the lower line is where dips have been bought, and a decisive break below it says the trend's character has changed.

The mirror image: lower highs and lower lows between parallel falling lines. Rallies to the upper line are where sellers have repeatedly stepped in, until a break above it says they've stopped.

The opposite of a triangle: each swing is wider than the last, the boundary lines diverge. It marks rising disagreement and volatility rather than a direction — usually a signal to size down rather than to pick a side.