Thomas N. Bulkowski - Encyclopedia of Chart Patterns

This book has information that will give you an edge to put you ahead of other traders. But information is only one ingredient to success. You have to understand how to use it.

In the Glossary near the back of this book, I have listed the Results Snapshot followed by nine statistics tables, the same ones used in most chapters. There, I explain each table entry. If you're ever confused about the meaning of a table entry or how I measured performance, then check the Glossary.

Following the Glossary is terminology. It explains important terms used in this book.

There's also a Visual Index of chart patterns hidden back there. If you can't make sense of the squiggles on your price chart, then maybe the visual index can help identify the pattern.

This book is a reference tool, not a novel where you discover the butler did it, and it's not a book you'll want to read from cover to cover. I tried to lighten up the prose in this edition. You may find my humor misses the mark. At least I woke you up.

Maybe you already own the first or second edition. Why buy the book again? The first edition was like owning a horse. The second edition was like owning a model T. This edition is like owning the DeLorean time machine from the movie Back to the Future .

I added chapters covering 23 new chart patterns.

Additional samples. This edition reports on 150,000 samples, ten times the first edition (15,000) and almost four times the second edition (38,500).

New tables. All tables are still easy to understand. The new tables are:How often stops hit (provides guidance for placing stop loss orders)Performance and failures over time (do chart patterns work as well today as they did 30 years ago?)Busted patterns (can you make more money trading failed patterns?)Special features (shows statistics unique to some chart patterns)

Experience section. If I have traded a chart pattern, I discuss my experience with it, including lessons learned.

Easy to use. Bold table references (example: Table 34.1), chart references (example: Figure 27.5), and descriptive table entries (example: Days to ultimate high) help make finding your place in the text and locating the discussion for a table entry or figure easier.

With four times as many samples as in the second edition, and with performance drifting over the 15 years since I updated this book, many statistics will have changed, sometimes substantially.

Don't be alarmed.

The statistics in this book allow you to compare the performance of one chart pattern to another (which I make easy in the Statistics Summary at the back of the book). The performance results are not meant to suggest you can make 55% trading bump‐and‐run reversal bottoms (the best performing chart pattern with an average rise of 55%). You can make 55%, but only if you trade the chart pattern perfectly, and do so 1,099 times. Is that going to happen?

No.

You can do better.

If you're serious about trading the stock market, or investing for the long haul, this book might be the answer to your dreams. And if not, then each night read one of the Sample Trades to your children as a bedtime story. Most won't give them nightmares, and they are too young to care anyway.

But they might grow up to be traders like Lisa who'll buy you a boat.

Thomas N. Bulkowski

January 2021

On 24 March 2000, the financial world changed. No, that was not the date this book first hit the store shelves, but the beginning of a bear market that lasted 2.5 years. Finally, I had bear market data to use for finding chart patterns!

After spending nearly 5 years recovering from the work needed to complete the first edition, I decided to undertake an update. I changed the editorial content of the book in small ways, but made substantial improvements in others. Here is the list of the important changes:

Bull and bear market statistics for complete coverage.

Expanded statistics, all in a similar format:Results Snapshot, at the start of each chapter, shows the most important numbers and surprises.General statistics, including the average rise or decline, busted pattern performance, and benchmark performance.Failure rates, a list of ten breakpoints to show how often a pattern fails.Breakout and post‐breakout statistics, showing performance over the yearly price range, pullback rates, and performance after a gap.Frequency distribution of days to the ultimate high or low, showing when the trend is likely to end.Size statistics, describing how performance varies for pattern height, width, and combinations of both.Volume statistics, including volume trend, a new concept I call volume shapes, and breakout day volume.For best performance, a list of trading tips and where to find them in each chapter.

More chart patterns. I added 14 new chart patterns.

Event patterns. I added 9 new types of patterns, which I call event patterns. These include earnings surprises, drug approvals, store sales, and stock upgrades and downgrades.

More samples. I found over 38,500 chart pattern samples, more than double the 15,000 used in the first edition.

Keyed table entries. Each table entry appears in bold at the start of its corresponding text discussion for easy locating.

Glossary and methodology. Instead of peppering the text with repeated explanations, a new chapter explains how I arrived at each table entry.

Thanks to the thousands who purchased the first edition. I am confident that this second edition will help you become a more knowledgeable and successful trader.

Thomas N. Bulkowski

January 2005

When I was a little tyke, I decided the easiest way to riches was to play the stock market. It was, after all, a level playing field, a negative‐sum game with somebody winning and somebody losing. ( Hint: The winner is always the broker.) All one had to do to win was pick stocks that went up and avoid stocks that went down. Easy.

I kept this in mind when I graduated from Syracuse University with an engineering degree and showed up early for my first professional job. Each morning I cracked open the newspaper and plotted my stock picks on a piece of graph paper taped to the wall. Bob, my office mate, used the same newspaper to select his stocks. I chose my selections after exhausting fundamental research, but Bob simply closed his eyes, twirled his hand around, and plunged his finger into the newspaper. When he opened his eyes and removed his finger, he announced another pick.

After several months of tracking both our selections, I made a startling discovery: I was getting creamed. Bob's random selections were beating the tar out of my carefully researched choices. I also discovered something else: I was learning a lot by paper trading.

With the hesitancy and distrust inherited from my parents, I studied two dozen firms before making my final selection and first purchase: I opened a money market account. The timing was excellent; I was earning over 17% on my cash. At first glance, the return might imply a very risky investment, but it was not. The prime rate was, after all, at 21%.

Flush with success, I gathered my courage and opened a brokerage account and began investing the few pennies I saved. Again, the timing was excellent as I caught the beginning of a major bull market. I bought a stock at a split‐adjusted price of 88 cents and watched it go to $30 and change.

Lest you think that everything was easy, consider what happened. My stock portfolio was growing by leaps and bounds, but my professional career was about to take a turn for the worse. After switching careers more often than I sometimes like to admit, I landed a job with a company I could finally call home—a job that would last a lifetime, or so I hoped. Almost 6 months after my 10‐year anniversary with the company, I received a letter from the chairman. He congratulated me on my decade with the company and looked forward to even more success for me in the coming years.