Chart patterns PDF
All 20 patterns on a printable sheet.
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Chart patterns: all 20, explained with diagrams
Strip away the jargon and almost every chart pattern is doing one of two jobs: warning you the trend is about to flip, or telling you it's just pausing before it carries on. Once you can sort a shape into those two buckets, the whole subject stops feeling like astrology and starts looking like a map. Below is the map: 20 patterns, each drawn.
By the StockGenie team··16 min read
Key takeaways
- A chart pattern is a recognisable shape that price draws over days or weeks; they sort into reversal patterns (the trend is likely flipping) and continuation patterns (the trend is likely resuming after a pause).
- The main reversal chart patterns are head and shoulders, double and triple tops and bottoms, rounding tops and bottoms, and rising and falling wedges. Most come in bearish and bullish mirror pairs.
- The main continuation chart patterns are flags, pennants, triangles, rectangles, cup and handle, and channels.
- A pattern only counts once price closes beyond its neckline or trendline, ideally on a clear rise in volume. Before that, it is just a shape.
- Patterns describe probabilities, not certainties. They fail often, so the level where you'd accept you were wrong matters as much as the level you're watching.
- Chart patterns work best alongside the trend, key support and resistance, and the underlying business, never read in isolation.
Open any chart and you’ll see the same handful of shapes turn up again and again, a peak flanked by two smaller peaks, a price that keeps bouncing off the same floor, a tightening wedge that looks like a coiled spring. These are chart patterns, and the reason traders obsess over them is simple: they’re a shorthand for what a crowd of buyers and sellers is feeling, drawn in price rather than words. They’re one of the building blocks of technical analysis, the discipline of reading price and volume rather than balance sheets. The trick is not memorising fifty of them. It’s learning to sort any shape into one of two families, then using the library of 20 chart patterns below as a reference.
Want all 20 on paper? The free chart patterns PDF has every pattern in this guide, with the same diagrams, on a printable sheet.
What a chart pattern actually is
A chart pattern is a recognisable formation that price traces out over time, usually days or weeks on a daily chart. Nothing mystical is happening. The shape is just the visible record of a tug-of-war: buyers pushing price up, sellers pushing it down, and the pattern is where that struggle leaves a footprint clear enough to name. Patterns sit one level up from candlestick patterns: a candle describes a single period, while a chart pattern is the shape dozens of them make together.
Patterns are just one slice of the broader work of stock market analysis, and they matter because markets are made of people, and people behave in roughly similar ways near similar prices. When a stock has run up hard and then stalls in a particular shape, that shape has, historically, often preceded a turn. The word often is doing heavy lifting there. A pattern shifts the odds; it never guarantees an outcome. Read this as education, not a signal to act, the call always stays with you.
The two families: reversal and continuation
Here’s the framing that makes the whole subject click. Every pattern is either a reversal or a continuation, and the difference comes down to where on the trend it appears. Which means you need the trend before the pattern, and how to read a stock chart covers establishing that first.
- A reversal pattern forms at the end of a move. The trend has run for a while, momentum is fading, and the shape hints the direction is about to flip, an uptrend topping out, or a downtrend carving a floor.
- A continuation pattern forms in the middle of a move. The trend pauses, traders catch their breath, and the shape suggests price is gathering itself to carry on the same way it was already heading.
So the first question to ask of any pattern isn’t “what’s it called?”, it’s “where is this on the trend?” A triangle after a long climb means something different from the same triangle at the start of a fall. Location is the tell.
Most chart patterns also come in mirror pairs, and learning them as pairs halves the work:
Reversal chart patterns
Reversal patterns form at the end of a move and hint that the prior trend is running out of road. The bullish reversal chart patterns, such as the inverse head and shoulders, the double bottom and the falling wedge, appear after a fall; their bearish twins appear after a rise. Each one’s fading momentum is often easier to see when you cross-check the shape against momentum indicators like RSI and MACD, which can weaken before the pattern itself completes.
Head and shoulders
Bearish reversal
Three peaks after a rise: a higher head between two roughly level shoulders. The lows between them form the neckline.
What confirms it: Only complete when price closes below the neckline, ideally on rising volume; until then it is just three peaks.
Volume often fades from the left shoulder to the right, a sign buyers are losing interest. The traditional measured move projects the head-to-neckline distance below the break, a rough guide rather than a promise.
Inverse head and shoulders
Bullish reversal
Three troughs after a fall, the middle one (the head) lowest, with a neckline across the highs between them.
What confirms it: Complete on a close above the neckline; volume should expand on the breakout.
Also called a head-and-shoulders bottom. It tends to form more slowly than the top version, and a pullback to retest the neckline after the break is common.
Double top (M pattern)
Bearish reversal
Two peaks at roughly the same price after a rise, with a trough between them. Buyers failed twice at the same level.
What confirms it: Confirmed only when price closes below the trough between the two peaks.
Traders call it the M pattern because of its shape. Two similar peaks are common and most never break the middle low, which is exactly why the confirmation step matters.
Double bottom (W pattern)
Bullish reversal
Two troughs at roughly the same price after a fall, with a peak between them. Sellers failed twice at the same level.
What confirms it: Confirmed on a close above the peak between the two troughs, better with a volume pickup.
The W pattern. A second low slightly above the first, on lighter volume, is often read as sellers running out of steam.
Triple top
Bearish reversal
Three peaks at about the same level after a rise, each one failing at the same resistance.
What confirms it: Confirmed on a close below the lows between the peaks.
Rarer than the double top and slower to form. The longer a level caps price, the more a clean break of the support underneath tends to matter.
Triple bottom
Bullish reversal
Three troughs at about the same level after a fall, each one holding the same support.
What confirms it: Confirmed on a close above the highs between the troughs, ideally on higher volume.
Each successful test of the same support shows sellers failing at that price; the break above the resistance between the troughs is what completes it.
Rounding top
Bearish reversal
A slow, dome-shaped turn from rising to falling prices, without a sharp peak.
What confirms it: The signal comes when price breaks below the base where the dome began.
It reflects a gradual hand-over from buyers to sellers, so it takes weeks or months to form and is easiest to see on a weekly chart.
Rounding bottom (saucer)
Bullish reversal
A slow, bowl-shaped turn from falling to rising prices, without a sharp low.
What confirms it: Confirmed when price climbs back above the level where the decline began.
Also called a saucer bottom. The cup in a cup and handle is essentially a rounding bottom with a short pause added.
Rising wedge
Bearish reversal
Price climbs inside two upward-sloping lines that converge, the lower one steeper. Each push higher gains less ground.
What confirms it: Confirmed on a close below the lower trendline.
It can mark the end of an uptrend or appear as a pause inside a downtrend; either way the usual resolution is downward.
Falling wedge
Bullish reversal
Price falls inside two downward-sloping lines that converge. Each new low is shallower than the last.
What confirms it: Confirmed on a close above the upper trendline, ideally with a volume pickup.
The mirror of the rising wedge. Selling is still happening but losing force, which is why the usual resolution is upward.
Confirmation is everything with reversals. A head and shoulders that never closes below its neckline is just a wiggle. It has not reversed anything. Wait for the close beyond the boundary, ideally on a visible jump in volume, before you treat the pattern as real. Acting on the anticipated shape, before it completes, is how most people get caught.
Continuation chart patterns
Continuation patterns are pauses inside a trend: price sprinted, traders are taking a breather, and the prior direction often resumes once the pause ends. Because many of them form quickly, they reward patience over prediction. You let the breakout happen rather than guessing it, and check the volume behind the break. The symmetrical triangle and the rectangle are honest exceptions: they can break either way, so treat them as neutral until they do.
Bull flag (flag and pole)
Bullish continuation
A sharp rise (the pole) followed by a short, gently falling channel (the flag) before the rise resumes.
What confirms it: Confirmed when price closes above the flag's upper line, with volume picking up again.
Volume usually shrinks while the flag forms. A flag that drifts too long or too deep is losing its meaning.
Bear flag
Bearish continuation
A sharp fall (the pole) followed by a short, gently rising channel before the fall resumes.
What confirms it: Confirmed on a close below the flag's lower line.
The mirror of the bull flag: a weak bounce inside a strong decline. The bounce usually comes on lighter volume than the fall.
Pennant
Bullish continuation
A sharp move followed by a small symmetrical triangle, then a continuation in the same direction.
What confirms it: Confirmed on a close out of the triangle in the direction of the original move.
Like a flag, but the pause narrows to a point instead of forming a channel. It usually lasts days rather than weeks.
Cup and handle
Bullish continuation
A rounded, U-shaped dip (the cup) back up to the old high, then a small pullback (the handle) before a push higher.
What confirms it: Confirmed on a close above the rim of the cup, with volume expanding.
The handle should be shallow and short compared with the cup. A deep, V-shaped cup or a long, sagging handle weakens the pattern.
Ascending triangle
Bullish continuation
A flat top that price keeps hitting, with rising lows beneath it. Buyers are stepping in at higher prices each time.
What confirms it: Confirmed on a close above the flat top, ideally on strong volume.
It usually resolves upward, but not always; a close below the rising line cancels the idea.
Descending triangle
Bearish continuation
A flat floor that price keeps testing, with falling highs above it. Sellers get more aggressive each time.
What confirms it: Confirmed on a close below the flat floor.
The mirror of the ascending triangle. The more times the floor is tested, the more a break below it tends to matter.
Symmetrical triangle
Either direction
Lower highs and higher lows squeezing into a point. Neither side is in control.
What confirms it: The direction is set by the breakout: a close outside either line.
It often continues the prior trend, but treat it as neutral until price breaks out. Breakouts very close to the tip tend to be weaker.
Rectangle (trading range)
Either direction
Price bounces between a flat ceiling and a flat floor: a pause in the trend, also called a trading range.
What confirms it: The direction comes from a close outside the range, ideally with rising volume.
Many stocks spend long stretches in rectangles. Breakouts that slip back inside the range are common, so a close, not an intraday poke, is what counts.
Ascending channel
Bullish continuation
Price moves between two parallel rising lines, making higher highs and higher lows.
What confirms it: The uptrend holds while price stays inside the channel; a close below the lower line signals a change.
The upper line tends to act as resistance and the lower one as support. It is less a single signal than a map of an orderly uptrend.
Descending channel
Bearish continuation
Price moves between two parallel falling lines, making lower highs and lower lows.
What confirms it: The downtrend holds while price stays inside; a close above the upper line signals a change.
The mirror of the ascending channel. A close above the upper line is the first sign the downtrend may be ending.
Confirmation, volume and the line that says you’re wrong
A pattern is a hypothesis, and a breakout is what tests it. The breakout is the moment price closes clearly beyond the pattern’s edge, below a neckline, above a triangle’s upper line. A close, not an intraday poke that gets reeled back by the bell. And the single most useful filter is volume: a break backed by a surge of trading carries conviction, while a break on thin volume is the one that tends to fail and snap back inside. Volume is the lie-detector for patterns, which is why it pays to understand why trading volume confirms a move before you lean on any shape.
Just as important is deciding, in advance, where you’d accept the pattern has failed. Take a hypothetical largecap that stalls near ₹3,200 twice over three weeks, sagging to ₹2,950 in between: a double top is only confirmed on a close below ₹2,950, and a close back above ₹3,200 would say the pattern has failed. Knowing both levels beforehand is what separates reading a chart from hoping at one. Patterns fail routinely; the disciplined part is planning for it.
How patterns fit the bigger picture
Chart patterns are one lens, and a narrow one. They tell you how the market is treating a stock right now. They say nothing about whether the business behind it is any good. A flawless ascending triangle on a company drowning in debt is still a company drowning in debt. That’s why patterns belong inside a wider routine: the trend, key support and resistance, volume, and the fundamentals all weighed together. They also pair naturally with candlestick patterns, which read the same battle at the level of a single bar and often flag a turn a few sessions before the larger shape completes.
If hunting for these shapes by eye sounds like a lot of squinting, that’s because it is. The technical analysis tools in the StockGenie app scan NSE charts and, on Premium, flag patterns as they form, head and shoulders, triangles, double tops, then write a plain-language note on what each one is and isn’t saying, with the volume context attached. You can see how the AI chart-pattern detection is built into the wider feature set if you want the detail. It points; you still decide. No buy or sell calls, just a clearer read of the chart so the judgement stays yours. And if you’d rather keep the shapes beside your screen while you learn, print the chart patterns PDF.
Sources & further reading
StockGenie provides analysis and education only, not investment advice. Always consult a SEBI-registered adviser before investing.
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