Trading The Cup And Handle Pattern

Order execution should only occur if the price breaks the pattern’s resistance. Traders may experience excess slippage and enter a false breakout using an aggressive entry. There is a risk of missing the trade if the price continues to advance and does not pull back. When it comes to taking profits, traders can use the greater pattern to inform exit positions. Often, this is simply a mirror of the distance between the low point of the cup to the breakout level.

Keep in mind that while diversification may help spread risk it does not assure a profit, or protect against loss, in a down market. There is always the potential of losing money when you invest in securities or other financial products. Investors should consider their investment objectives and risks carefully before investing. Therefore, to compensate for this weakness, you may benefit from adding a volatility measuring indicator to your chart pattern trading strategy.

  • The second target equals to the size of the cup, applied downwards starting from the moment of the breakout.
  • But, carefully reading this pattern may provide some very useful insights on the future price performance of the security that you are trading.
  • Therefore, you can find the price level that is halfway between the highest and the lowest point of the Cup and set this price point as your Stop Loss.
  • The potential profit is twice the risk because the risk is the size of the handle.

It also tells you where to expect the initial resistance level. This resistance happens at the level where the price reached and started falling. The cup and handle pattern is a pattern that traders use to identify whether the price of an asset will continue moving upwards. As the name suggests, the pattern is made up of two sections; a cup and handle.

When a stock forming this pattern reaches old highs, it experiences selling pressure from investors who bought at those levels previously. Selling pressure will probably make price consolidate with a tendency toward a downtrend trend for a period of three days to five weeks, before going higher. A cup and handle is seen as a bullish continuation pattern and it tells traders the right opportunities to buy. The time period of cup and handle patterns can vary, but is one of the most critical factors both in determining whether a cup and handle is developing and in finding entry and exit points.

Any scan that looks for stocks with recent upward momentum should be able to find these patterns. Then, manually go through the results looking for the pattern and specific traits discussed. But the point is that you need to define exactly how the handle will look, and at what point you will trade it. The price can be quite choppy while forming a handle, so if you don’t have precise rules, you will have more losing trades. Write down all the details of how you will trade in your trading plan.

A common stop level is just outside the handle on the opposite side of the breakout. The Inverted Cup and Handle is the bearish version that can form after a downtrend. TradingView has a smart drawing world currencies tool that allows users to visually identify this pattern on a chart. Trading charts are a visual instrument some investors use to track the price of an asset over time, including most often stocks.

In other cases, traders may set a stop-loss at a certain percentage drawdown from the right side of the cup or below a trend line drawn along the right slope of the cup. To further your knowledge about patterns, such as head and shoulders patterns and golden cross patterns, and investing in general, check out our blog. RSI is one of the most used Technical Indicators you can find on the market today. That said, it has historically been viewed as a tool more usable for swing trading rather than day trading because…

Cup And Handle Pattern In Technical Analysis

However, history shows that the target could be achieved quickly and then, soon after, the log target ($3,745 and $4,080). The buy point is presented when price breaks out the upper trendline of the handle. Volume should be running well above average when the stock breaks out. If the Pair trading on forex pattern is bullish, buy when the price breaks the handle upwards. An additional option is to stay in the trade as long as the price is trending in your favor. You may not want to completely exit the trade, where the price move is offering more potential to add profit to your trade.

cup with handle pattern

The right side of the handle rises higher than the left and the pattern slightly overestimates the extent of the bullish continuation after the breakout. Cup and handle patterns typically are seen to occur on a daily chart after a strong trend has progressed for one or more months. As a trend matures, the chances that the cup and handle forms decrease, while any cup and handle that does form is likely to produce a smaller continuation movement with less upside potential. Inverted cup and handle patterns are also possible during downtrends and signal bearish continuations.

The pattern’s formation may be as short as seven weeks or as long as 65 weeks. Chart Patterns are commonly leveraged by technical traders across cup and handle formation all asset classes to predict the future movement in price trends. One prominent chart pattern that traders use is the Cup and Handle Pattern.

Commodity and historical index data provided by Pinnacle Data Corporation. Unless otherwise indicated, all data is delayed by 15 minutes. The information provided by StockCharts.com, Inc. is not investment advice.

What Happens After A Cup And Handle Pattern??

The next breakout attempt fails at the prior high, yielding a secondary pullback that holds near resistance, grinding out a smaller rounding bottom, which becomes the “handle.” The security posts a significant high in an uptrend that accelerated between one and three months prior. The unique three river is a candlestick pattern composed of three specific candles, and it may lead to a bullish reversal or a bearish continuation.

cup with handle pattern

When you layer the volume on top of the price action, they both can look like two Us on the chart. Trading the cup-and-handle pattern is one technique that stems from what is known as technical analysis. But the main alternative to this type of analysis is fundamental analysis. It focuses on how the company is doing financially and operationally and can complement the insights of technical analysis.

Chart patterns usually occur when the cost of an asset goes towards a direction that a common shape, like a rectangle, triangle, head and shoulders, or in this case, a cup and handle pattern. They offer a logical point of entry, a stop-loss place to manage risk, and a price target for leaving a profitable trade. I want to buy cup and handle breakouts when general market conditions are favorable. If most stocks are dropping, many of the cup and handle patterns that do break out will fail to reach the profit target.

The Traits To Look For To Find High Quality Stock Trades

At the same time, longs chasing the breakout watch a small profit evaporate and are forced to defend positions. Both groups are now targeted for losses or reduced profits, while short-sellers pat themselves on the back for a job well done. The security returns Venture fund to resistance for the second time and breaks out, yielding a measured move target equal to the depth of the cup. A bull is an investor who invests in a security expecting the price will rise. Discover what bullish investors look for in stocks and other assets.

cup with handle pattern

Cup and handle patterns can also occur on shorter timeframes, although trading these requires quick recognition and confirmation of the breakout at the end of the handle in order to profit. Again, beware cup and handle patterns that form at the end of a trend rather than partway through it, as they are less likely to signal a strong continuation. There isn’t a stock scanner setting you can use to find a cup and handle pattern, but the pattern is easy to recognize visually. If you set your stock scanner to meet your other trading needs, then you can flip through the results until you find a chart that looks like a cup and handle. For example, a day trader may scan for stocks with a high average true range , and a swing trader might search for stocks that have performed well in recent weeks. Let’s consider the market mechanics of a typical cup and handle scenario.

Traders need to look beyond the telltale appearance of a cup and handle on the stock chart and quantify the bullish and bearish sentiments that drive this pattern’s formation. Cup and handles are two part patterns that start with a peak that sells off and forms a rounding U shape recovery back to the prior high where the sell-off began also known as the lip of the cup. The price rejects forming a double top as a bull flag reversion forms the handle. When the bull flag triggers spiking the price through the lip, the cup and handle pattern is triggered the trend resumes the next leg higher with new highs. However, the bearish version can form when the pattern is inverted. This large U-shaped pattern may look like a typical double top but for the purposes of this pattern, it is called the cup.

Advantages Of Trading The Cup And Handle Pattern

After the bearish Cup with Handle signal, you can start pursuing the bearish potential of the pattern. The confirmation of the pattern comes when the price action breaks the channel of the handle in the bearish direction. The first target of the pattern equals to the size of the bearish channel around the handle, applied downwards starting from the moment of the breakout.

Interpreting Cup And Handle Pattern

The handle shakes out weak shareholders before the real move happens. The shakeout is healthy for the pattern because when weaker hands tend to flood a position, they are more inclined to sell as price rises or breaks out. When they are shaken out of the stock it also adds extra buyers instead of sellers when the stock officially breaks out. The price action breaks upwards and we apply the two targets.

Set the stop loss just below the lowest point on the handle, but no lower than half the depth of the cup since the handle should remain above this level. Ideally, the stop loss should be within the upper third of the cup since strong handles will not drop below this point. Another method for identifying the profit target is to plot a Fibonacci extension. Plot the extension from the base of the cup to the start of the handle, then to the handle’s low. One hundred percent of the extension is considered a conservative price target for cup and handle pattern breakouts, while 162 percent is considered an aggressive price target. The reasoning behind this explanation is that the breakout move requires strong volume after the necessary quiet period to form both the cup and the handle.

The cup and handle pattern is a bullish continuation pattern triggered by consolidation after a strong upward trend. The pattern takes some time to develop, but is relatively straightforward to recognize and trade on once it forms. As with all chart patterns, trading volume and additional indicators should be used to confirm a breakout and continuation of the original bullish price movement. The cup and handle pattern was made popular by William O’Neil, which now has expanded into all sorts of trading scenarios.

A new rallyprints a high, and the price rolls over into a correction, flipping relative strength oscillators into sell cycles that encourage strong-handed longs to exit positions. New buyers enter the pullback at the 38.6% or 50% retracement level, expecting the prior uptrend to resume. The security bounces and tests the high, drawing in aggressive short-sellers who believe that a new downtrend will elicit a double top breakdown. Many cup and handle traders adhere strictly to O’Neil’s rules for construction, but there are many variations that produce reliable results. In fact, modified C&H patterns have applications in all time frames, from intraday scalping to monthly market timing.

Author: Dan Blystone

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One Response to “Trading The Cup And Handle Pattern”

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