Ascending triangle

It is drawn with two boundaries. The upper one is a roughly horizontal line through two or more highs that stopped at approximately the same level. The lower one is a rising line through successively higher lows. Each boundary needs at least two touches before it can be drawn at all, and the formation is only visible in retrospect, because the second touch that confirms a boundary is also the point at which the shape becomes describable.

The classical reading treats it as a continuation formation within an existing uptrend, and pairs it with a measured move convention: the vertical height of the formation at its widest point is added to the level at which the upper boundary is exceeded, and the result is quoted as an objective. That convention comes from a long teaching lineage in technical analysis rather than from an established result, and studies of pattern reliability disagree with one another largely because the formation has no objective definition to test against.

Three practical caveats attach. The horizontal boundary is rarely horizontal, so where it is drawn is a judgement and two chartists reading one chart will draw it differently. A move through a boundary that reverses back inside it is common enough to have acquired its own vocabulary. And the volume behaviour usually described alongside the formation is asserted far more often than it is measured. Its mirror image, with a flat floor and descending highs, is the descending triangle.