Triangle pattern

A converging consolidation, named for the shape its boundaries make. Three variants are conventionally distinguished by which boundary does the moving. A symmetrical triangle has a falling upper boundary and a rising lower one, so both sides converge. An ascending triangle has a flat upper boundary and a rising lower one. A descending triangle has a flat lower boundary and a falling upper one. All three describe the same underlying observation, that the range each swing covers is shrinking.

The conventional readings attached to the shapes differ in confidence, and it is worth separating the description from the claim. The description, that range is contracting, is measurable. The claim, that an ascending triangle resolves upward and a descending one downward, is a convention from the chart literature rather than a finding, and the symmetrical form is explicitly held to imply no direction at all. A second convention estimates a distance after a break by taking the height of the triangle at its widest and projecting it from the boundary, which is a rule of thumb with no mechanism behind it.

Two practical difficulties recur. The boundaries are drawn by eye, so the same bars support several defensible triangles, and the apex is a moving target that arrives sooner on a redrawn line. And the shape is only complete once price has left it, which is exactly when the reading is no longer available in advance. A departure that returns inside the boundaries is common enough to have its own name, and published tests of how often triangles resolve as the convention says disagree with each other, chiefly because each encodes different drawing and confirmation rules.