Technical Analysis · Visual Reference · 2026
A visual field guide to the price formations traders watch for reversals, continuations, momentum bursts and volume signals — grouped, colour-coded, and read at a glance.
Signs a trend is running out of fuel and may turn. Traders hunt these at key tops and bottoms.
A topping shape of three peaks — a tall central head between two lower shoulders. It warns that an uptrend is losing its buyers.
The topping pattern flipped upside down — three troughs with the deepest in the middle. It marks sellers exhausting and buyers stepping back in.
Price tests one level twice and fails to push through, leaving a twin-peak “M” or twin-trough “W”. Two clean rejections suggest the trend is done.
A long rounded base (the cup) followed by a shallow pullback (the handle). The smooth recovery hints at quiet accumulation before a push higher.
A single candle whose body completely swallows the previous one, flipping short-term control. Bullish engulfing turns the tide up; bearish turns it down.
A pause, not a turn. The trend catches its breath through consolidation, then resumes its prior direction.
A sharp move (the pole) followed by a tight, slightly counter-trend channel (the flag). The breather precedes a resumption of the original move.
Like a flag, but the pause squeezes into a small symmetrical triangle as buyers and sellers tighten. The coil resolves in the prior trend's direction.
A flat barrier on one side and a sloping trendline on the other, showing one side steadily gaining ground before the level finally gives.
Highs step lower and lows step higher into a narrowing coil, with neither side in clear command. It stays direction-neutral until price escapes an edge.
A tilted, narrowing range where both lines slope the same way. A rising wedge leans up but tends to break down; a falling wedge leans down but tends to break up.
Bursts of one-sided pressure — the price acceleration that kicks off, or confirms, a strong directional move.
Price pushes decisively through a well-watched support or resistance line, often starting a fresh leg. Conviction shows up as a strong close and a jump in volume.
An empty space where price leaps between sessions with no trading in between. The type — common, breakaway, runaway or exhaustion — tells you where you are in a move.
A cluster of candles stranded by a gap on the way in and an opposite gap on the way out, left floating apart from the trend. It signals an abrupt change of heart.
Three strong candles in a row, each closing further in the same direction. White soldiers show relentless buying; black crows show relentless selling.
Volume is the lie detector. These signals weigh participation behind a move to separate real conviction from noise.
A sudden burst of volume that backs a price move, separating real conviction from drift. When the spike lines up with a breakout or reversal, the signal carries more weight.
Price reaches a familiar floor or ceiling and reverses as traders defend the zone. Strong volume on the bounce shows the level is being respected.
The volume-weighted average price acts as an intraday fair-value line. Stretched far from VWAP, price tends to snap back toward it.
A pattern is a hypothesis, not a guarantee. Three habits keep the odds on your side.
Don't trade a shape on its own. Let a second tool agree before you commit.
Decide where you're wrong before you enter, and size the trade around it.
Participation tells you whether a break is real or a trap.