14 in-depth guides

Chart Patterns and Price Action Trading Guides

Patterns only help when they are defined precisely enough to test. Every guide here gives you a measurable definition, an entry, an invalidation level, and the evidence on reliability.

Beginner guides

No prior knowledge assumed. Start here.

Patterns

Beginner6 min read

Candlestick Patterns Guide: The Ones Worth Knowing

Candlestick patterns describe what happened inside one or two bars. They are context about rejection and absorption, not signals in themselves.

Patterns

Beginner5 min read

Chart Patterns Explained: What Works and How to Test It

A pattern is only useful if it can be defined precisely enough for a computer to find it. That single requirement eliminates most of what is taught.

Patterns

Beginner4 min read

Market Structure Explained: Highs, Lows, and What Changes a Trend

Market structure reduces trend to a sequence of highs and lows. It is the most objective framework in price analysis and underlies most named patterns.

Patterns

Beginner5 min read

Support and Resistance: Why Levels Work and How to Find Them

Levels matter because orders cluster there, not because prices remember. Understanding that changes how you identify and trade them.

Patterns

Beginner5 min read

Trendlines and Channels: Drawing Them Without Fooling Yourself

Any two points define a line. That is the entire problem with trendlines, and the reason rules for drawing them matter more than the lines themselves.

Intermediate guides

Assumes you know order types, charts, and basic risk sizing.

Patterns

Intermediate5 min read

Cup and Handle Pattern: A Base That Resolves Upward

The cup is a long base where supply is absorbed. The handle is the final shakeout before the breakout. Both parts need definition to be tradeable.

Patterns

Intermediate5 min read

Double Top and Double Bottom: Testing a Level Twice

A double top is a level that rejected price twice. The pattern is easier to define than most, which makes it one of the more testable reversal structures.

Patterns

Intermediate5 min read

Engulfing Bars and Pin Bars: The Two Candles Worth Trading

Of all candlestick patterns, these two have the clearest mechanism and the most objective definitions, which is why they survive testing better than the rest.

Patterns

Intermediate5 min read

Flags and Pennants: Continuation After a Sharp Move

A flag is a shallow pause after a sharp move. It works because the pause shows profit-taking being absorbed rather than a change of control.

Patterns

Intermediate5 min read

Head and Shoulders Pattern: Definition, Mechanism, and Honest Testing

The pattern is a failed higher high followed by a broken support level. That description is more useful than the shape, and easier to test.

Patterns

Intermediate5 min read

Price Action Trading: Reading the Market Without Indicators

Price action is not the absence of a method. It is a method built from structure, levels, and volatility rather than from derived indicators.

Patterns

Intermediate5 min read

Price Gaps Explained: Types, Statistics, and Risk

A gap is the market repricing while you could not trade. That makes gaps both an opportunity and the one risk a stop loss cannot protect you from.

Patterns

Intermediate5 min read

Triangle Patterns: Ascending, Descending, and Symmetrical

A triangle is volatility compression with a directional bias built into its shape. Defining that compression numerically is what makes it tradeable.

Patterns

Intermediate5 min read

Wedge Patterns: Rising and Falling Wedges Explained

A wedge is a converging range that slopes. The slope against the eventual break is what distinguishes it, and what makes it a weaker signal than it appears.

Every guide in this category

Other categories

Trading Foundations

Plain-English foundations for new traders: what a trading strategy is, how markets work, order types, timeframes, and how to build a first rule-based plan.

Trading Strategy Types

In-depth guides to every major trading strategy type, from trend following and mean reversion to pairs trading, arbitrage, market making, and event-driven trading.

Indicators & Signals

How technical indicators are calculated, what they actually measure, and how to turn moving averages, RSI, MACD, ATR, and volume tools into tested trading rules.

Strategies by Asset Class

The strategies that actually fit each market: stocks, ETFs, options, futures, forex, crypto, commodities, bonds, and index products, with costs, hours, and leverage compared.

Risk & Money Management

Position sizing, stop losses, drawdown control, correlation risk, and the maths of ruin, explained so you can size trades with a formula instead of a feeling.

Algorithmic & Quant Trading

How to turn a discretionary idea into code: signal design, factor models, execution algorithms, data pipelines, machine learning pitfalls, and production monitoring.

Backtesting & Validation

Backtesting methodology that survives contact with live markets: look-ahead bias, survivorship bias, walk-forward analysis, Monte Carlo testing, and realistic cost modelling.

Market Mechanics & Execution

Order books, matching engines, order types, spreads, slippage, market makers, settlement, and the trading session structure that decides what your fill really costs.

Trading Psychology & Process

The behavioural side of trading: loss aversion, revenge trading, overconfidence, journaling, routine design, and the process controls that keep rules intact under stress.