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Chart patterns — a field guide

Bases, pivots & breakouts covered the three workhorse bases — cup with handle, flat base, double bottom. This page catalogs the rest of the patterns that come up constantly in practice: the rarer but powerful bases, the add-on patterns that let you build a winner after the first entry, and the topping patterns that warn a run is ending.

The ground rules don’t change: every buyable pattern has a pivot, the buy zone still ends 5% above it, and a breakout without heavy volume is a breakout to distrust.

High tight flag

Section titled “High tight flag”

The rarest and most powerful continuation pattern. The stock roughly doubles in four to eight weeks (the flagpole), then drifts sideways-down only 10–25% for three to five weeks (the flag) — refusing to give back a move that violent is itself the signal. The pivot is the flag’s high.

pivot (flag high) ≈100%+ in 4–8 wks flag: 3–5 wks, gives back only 10–25% breakout
High tight flag: extraordinary power, then an unusually shallow rest. Rare — a handful per market cycle — and unforgiving when misread.

Handle with care: because the entry is far above any prior support, failed high tight flags fail hard. If the “flag” corrects much more than 25%, it’s not this pattern.

Ascending base

Section titled “Ascending base”

Three pullbacks of 10–20%, each one bottoming higher than the last, usually while a choppy general market keeps interrupting the advance. The stock is fighting upward against the current — a mark of unusual strength. The pivot is the high of the third pullback.

pivot (third high) 1 2 3 three pullbacks of 10–20%, each low higher than the last breakout
Ascending base: higher highs and higher lows against a difficult market — strength that usually resolves upward when the market turns.

Base on base

Section titled “Base on base”

A stock breaks out, but a weak general market caps the move at less than 20% — so instead of a real advance, a second base forms directly on top of the first. Nothing failed; the spring just got compressed twice. When the market finally confirms, these are often the stocks that lead.

pivot (second-base high) first base second base forms on top of the first breakout the stalled first breakout gained < 20% — usually a weak market's doing, not the stock's
Base on base: two consolidations stacked like stairs; buy the breakout from the upper one when the market confirms.

Three-weeks-tight — the add-on pattern

Section titled “Three-weeks-tight — the add-on pattern”

Not a base — a place to add a small amount to an existing winner. After an advance, the stock closes three consecutive weeks within about 1% of each other: nobody is selling. The add point is a move above the tight area’s high, and the add should be modest — this pattern earns a top-up, not a new full position.

add point (tight-area high) three weekly closes within ~1% add on the move out read it on a weekly chart — daily noise hides the tightness
Three-weeks-tight: institutional holders sitting still. A small add, consistent with the shrinking tranches of pyramiding.

Pullback to the 10-week line

Section titled “Pullback to the 10-week line”

The standard follow-on entry for a stock you missed or want to build. A leader’s first or second orderly pullback to its rising 10-week (50-day) moving average — on light volume into the dip, then a bounce off the line on heavy volume — is a buyable reset. By the third or fourth visit the whole world sees it, and it fails far more often.

10-week line 1st pullback — buyable 2nd — still fine volume light into the dip, heavy on the bounce; a heavy-volume close below the line is a sell signal instead
Pullback to the 10-week line: the same line that serves as a sell trigger when broken on volume is a buy point when defended on volume.

Topping patterns — the shapes of an ending

Section titled “Topping patterns — the shapes of an ending”

The buy-side patterns above have sell-side mirrors. Two are worth knowing on sight, alongside the climax run and heavy-volume reversal covered with the selling rules:

  • Head and shoulders top — a high (left shoulder), a higher high (head), then a lower high (right shoulder). The lower high is the tell: buyers failed to press the advance. A break of the neckline — the support connecting the two troughs — completes the pattern.
  • Double top — an M shape: the second peak stalls at or slightly above the first and reverses. The confirmation is a break below the middle low of the M. It’s the double bottom upside down — and just as the undercut low shakes out sellers, the marginal new high traps late buyers.
neckline left shoulder head right shoulder — a lower high neckline break = the sell signal
Head and shoulders top: the failure to make a higher high, confirmed by the neckline break. For a holder, the right shoulder is the last good exit.

Caveats

Section titled “Caveats”
  • Frequency matters as much as shape. Flat bases and pullbacks to the 10-week line appear constantly; genuine high tight flags and ascending bases are rare. If you’re seeing a rare pattern weekly, you’re pattern-matching noise.
  • Every pattern degrades with lateness — late-stage bases, third and fourth pullbacks, obvious tightness after a long run. The base-count warning applies to everything on this page.
  • Record which pattern you traded in your journal — over time your own closed-trade history will tell you which of these you actually read well.
  • Our plain-English wording of publicly documented chart patterns; educational reference, not investment advice.