Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns. Thomas N. Bulkowski

Short and narrow performance 40% –11% Short and wide performance 40% –14% Tall and wide performance 48% –17% Tall and narrow performance 39% –16%

Table 9.6 Volume Statistics

Description	Up Breakout	Down Breakout
Volume trend	63% upward	62% upward
Rising volume trend performance	42%	–13%
Falling volume trend performance	43%	–16%
Heavy breakout volume performance	44%	–15%
Light breakout volume performance	39%	–12%

Table 9.7 How Often Stops Hit

Description	Up Breakout	Down Breakout
Pattern top	74%	2%
Middle	22%	17%
Pattern bottom	2%	70%

Breakout day volume. Heavy breakout volume helped the pattern perform for both breakout directions. That finding matches conventional lore where lots of sources claim that a high volume breakout helps. Here's the proof for this chart pattern. However, a survey of the chart patterns says it's only true for upward breakouts, not downward ones.

      Table 9.7 shows how often price reaches a stop location. I split the pattern into thirds and found how often price as it moved from the breakout to the ultimate high or low slid into one of the thirds.

      For example, I found that price on the way to the ultimate high (upward breakouts) would touch the top of the chart pattern 74% of the time. So a stop placed there would trigger too often to be viable. If you moved the stop to the bottom of the pattern, price would reach it only 2% of the time, but if it were to trigger, you might see a big loss.

      Thus, stop placement, where you have to balance the loss size with how often it'll be triggered, is something traders need to master.

      Table 9.8 shows the performance over three decades.

      Performance over time. The 2010s, for upward breakouts, showed the worst performance for this chart pattern compared to the other two decades. For downward breakouts, the 2000s were worst. I excluded the two bear markets during that decade, too.

      Failures over time. The most recent decade, the 2010s, showed substantially higher failure rates than the 1990s. I'm not sure why that is.

      Table 9.9 shows busted pattern performance.

      Busted patterns count. A quarter to nearly half of broadening patterns will bust. That means price moved no more than 10% away from the breakout price before reversing and closing beyond the other side of the pattern.

Table 9.8 Performance and Failures Over Time for Bull Markets

Description	Up Breakout	Down Breakout
1990s	41%	–16%
2000s	50%	–13%
2010s	36%	–14%
Performance (above), Failures (below)
1990s	10%	20%
2000s	13%	34%
2010s	23%	33%

Table 9.9 Busted Patterns

Description	Up Breakout	Down Breakout
Busted patterns count	146 or 26%	220 or 48%
Single bust count	77 or 53%	140 or 64%
Double bust count	45 or 31%	10 or 5%
Triple+ bust count	24 or 16%	70 or 32%
Performance for all busted patterns	–14%	33%
Single busted performance	–23%	49%
Non‐busted performance	–14%	43%

Busted occurrence. I counted how often price single, double, or triple (or more) busted a pattern. See the Glossary for details. Single busts happened the most. You might think that triple busts would be rare, but they often come in second place (which they do here, but only for downward breakouts).

      Busted and non‐busted performance. I compared the performance of all busted patterns, single busted patterns, and non‐busted patterns. I wanted to know if busted patterns performed better than non‐busted ones.

      The table shows that single busted patterns performed better than the other two categories. The problem with a single bust is you don't know ahead of time that a pattern will single bust.

      Non‐busted patterns performed better after downward breakouts compared to all busted patterns. All busted patterns means it's the average for the three busted types (single, double, and three or more).

Trading Tactics

      Table 9.10 lists trading tactics.

      Measure