Triangle pattern: the actual numbers

The three triangles

A triangle is a range contraction: highs and lows move closer together, and the two lines joining them converge. The market hesitates less and less widely, until it settles.

The symmetrical triangle has both lines converging towards each other: lower highs and higher lows. It gives no direction by construction, and it is the most common of the three.

The ascending triangle has a flat top and rising lows. Price hits the same level several times while the floor lifts. Bullish reading by default.

The descending triangle is its mirror: a flat floor and falling highs. Bearish reading by default.

Three points of method, often neglected. You need at least two touches on each line, otherwise you are drawing what you want to see. The pattern must contain empty space, otherwise it is a range and not a triangle. And the closer price gets to the apex, the weaker the break: the best breakouts happen around two thirds of the way in, not at the end.

The symmetrical triangle numbers, and they are bad

Study by Thomas Bulkowski across more than 3,000 perfect trades, quoted as it stands.

Performance rank: 36 out of 39 on an upward breakout, 34 out of 36 on a downward one. In both directions, the pattern sits in the bottom places.

Failure rate: 25% upward, 37% downward. One downward break in three goes nowhere.

Average move: 34% upward, 12% downward. Price target met: 58% upward, 36% downward. In other words, two downward breaks out of three never reach the target the pattern itself designates.

Return to the pattern after the break: 62% upward, 65% downward. That is the most useful number on the list for your execution: in almost two cases out of three, price comes back to touch the line it has just broken before moving on. Entering on the break therefore means accepting to be shaken two times out of three.

Breakout split: 60% upward, 40% downward. The pattern is therefore not neutral, contrary to what its symmetry suggests, but the gap is too small to build a trade on.

The author of the study sums the pattern up in one sentence himself: it appears often on price charts, and performance is awful. Source: thepatternsite.com, consulted in September 2026.

Why such a popular pattern disappoints

Three reasons, and they apply to other patterns in this catalogue.

It is too easy to see, therefore too easy to see everywhere. Two falling highs and two rising lows can be found on almost any chart if you look a little. A pattern you can always find selects nothing.

Its drawing is subjective. Two traders looking at the same chart will not place the same lines, so will not take the same break at the same price. A pattern whose definition depends on who draws it cannot produce a stable statistic, which is exactly the objection raised against the hammer in the candlestick lesson.

It is known to everybody, so the breakout levels sit exactly where everybody else's stops are. That is the mechanism producing the 62% to 65% of returns after the break: the market goes to collect what is resting there, then moves on.

What remains usable

The pattern keeps real value, just not the one attributed to it. It does not say where price is going, it says volatility is compressing, and a compression always ends up releasing. That is timing information, not direction.

Two defensible uses. One: wait for the break, then wait for the return to the line, which happens in nearly two cases out of three. Entering on that return costs less in stop distance and removes part of the false breaks.

Two: use the triangle as an abstention filter while price is inside it. As long as price is in there, there is nothing to do, and that is often where money is lost in repeated round trips.

As for the variants, the ascending and descending ones carry at least a direction in their shape, which the symmetrical one does not. All else equal, they are preferable.

What it gives in your own journal

Two measurements are enough, and each answers a question raised by the numbers above.

First measurement: does the return after the break concern you? Tag your entries taken on a triangle break and look at their maximum adverse excursion. If it almost always brings price back to the broken line, enter on the return rather than on the break. You will pay a better price for the same trade.

Second measurement: is your drawing reproducible? Record the date on which you drew the triangle, not only the date of the trade. If your triangles only appear in your journal after the break, you are not trading them, you are recognising them after the fact, and no statistic will ever apply to your practice.

Tradoshi computes adverse excursion on every imported trade and lets you filter by label, so the first measurement reads directly.

Frequently asked questions

Which triangle is the most reliable? The studies place the symmetrical one in the bottom places. The ascending and descending ones carry at least a direction in their shape, which makes them better candidates.

Should you wait for the break? Yes, and you should also know that price returns to the line in 62% to 65% of cases. Entering on that return is often the better compromise.

How many touches are needed to draw one? At least two per line. Below that you are drawing an intention, not a pattern.

Should volume fall inside the triangle? That is the classic observation and it is consistent with the idea of compression. It is not quantified in the study cited here, so treat it as a hypothesis.

What if price exits through the apex? Do nothing. The later the break, the less it carries, and the pattern has lost the energy it had stored.