As of 03/28/2024
  Indus: 39,807 +47.29 +0.1%  
  Trans: 16,212 +183.07 +1.1%  
  Utils: 882 +7.51 +0.9%  
  Nasdaq: 16,379 -20.06 -0.1%  
  S&P 500: 5,254 +5.86 +0.1%  
YTD
 +5.6%  
 +2.0%  
 +0.1%  
 +9.1%  
 +10.2%  
  Targets    Overview: 03/13/2024  
  Up arrow40,000 or 38,500 by 04/01/2024
  Up arrow16,300 or 15,350 by 04/01/2024
  Up arrow885 or 830 by 04/01/2024
  Up arrow16,600 or 15,200 by 04/01/2024
  Up arrow5,350 or 5,100 by 04/01/2024
As of 03/28/2024
  Indus: 39,807 +47.29 +0.1%  
  Trans: 16,212 +183.07 +1.1%  
  Utils: 882 +7.51 +0.9%  
  Nasdaq: 16,379 -20.06 -0.1%  
  S&P 500: 5,254 +5.86 +0.1%  
YTD
 +5.6%  
 +2.0%  
 +0.1%  
 +9.1%  
 +10.2%  
  Targets    Overview: 03/13/2024  
  Up arrow40,000 or 38,500 by 04/01/2024
  Up arrow16,300 or 15,350 by 04/01/2024
  Up arrow885 or 830 by 04/01/2024
  Up arrow16,600 or 15,200 by 04/01/2024
  Up arrow5,350 or 5,100 by 04/01/2024

Bulkowski's Pattern Frequency Study

My book, Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns Second EditionEncyclopedia of Chart Patterns 2nd Edition book., described 63 chart and event patterns, including performance statistics.

If you click on the above link and then buy the book (or anything) while at Amazon.com, the referral will help support this site. Thanks.

-- Tom Bulkowski

$ $ $

How often does a chart pattern appear? To answer that, I scanned my database of 500 stocks during the bull market of July 1991 to July 1996. Here are the results of the top five frequently appearing chart patterns for up and down breakouts.

 

Upward breakouts: 1 is most common out of 35Average Rise RankFailure Rate RankOverall Rank
1. Pipe bottoms

4 out of 22

5 out of 16

2 out of 23

2. Ascending triangles, up breakout

12

12

17

3. Ascending scallops

16

10

16

4. Head-and-shoulders bottoms

9

3

7

5. Bump-and-run reversal bottoms

9

2

8

For example, pipe bottoms occur most often in the database followed by ascending triangles with upward breakouts, and so on down the list. Each of those patterns have the associated performance rankings, for reference. The rankings had nothing to do with how often a pattern appears.

The average rise measures from the breakout price to the ultimate high before price tumbles at least 20%. Failures are a count of how many chart patterns fail to rise at least 5% after the breakout. The overall rank is the average rise rank plus the failure rate rank plus the change after the trend ends rank (not shown). A rank of 1 is best. Ties were given the same rank.

Downward breakouts: 1 is most common out of 34Average Decline RankFailure Rate RankOverall Rank
1. Bump-and-run reversal tops

5 out of 10

10 our to 19

3 out of 20

2. Descending triangles

8

3

10

3. Head-and-shoulders tops

2

14

1

4. Inverted and descending scallops

6

2

6

5. Pipe tops

4

8

4

Top of page More

Performance for downward breakouts is the same as upward breakouts, but I looked for the lowest low before price climbed by at least 20%.

-- Thomas Bulkowski

See Also

 

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Any minute now I'll jump in with pointless observations.Smiley