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How can you tell a bearish pennant?

Author

William Rodriguez

Published Jan 23, 2026

To identify a bearish pennant, look for a consolidation between support and resistance after a major bearish price move (the pole). The support and resistance lines will form a roughly symmetrical triangle, showing that the market is in conflict between positive and negative sentiment.

How do you tell if a pennant is bullish or bearish?

Bullish and bearish pennants summed up

  1. Pennants are a technical pattern used to identify continuations of sharp price moves.
  2. Bearish pennants occur when a bear move pauses, while bullish pennants occur when bull moves pause.
  3. Trading them requires planning when to open your position, take a profit and cut a loss.

What does a bearish pennant look like?

Bearish pennants are continuation patterns that mark a pause in the movement of a price halfway through a strong downtrend, offering you an opportunity to go short. They occur just after a sharp drop in price and resemble a triangular flag as the price moves sideways, making gradually lower highs and higher lows.

How accurate is bearish pennant?

Hind's evidence showed that the Head and Shoulders Pattern is the most reliable pattern, with a success percentage of 83.04% and the Inverted Head and Shoulders Pattern with a percentage of 83.44% but also that the Bullish Pennant Pattern is the worst reliable pattern, with a success percentage of 54.87% and the ...

How do you trade a bearish pennant pattern?

In a bearish pennant or flag patterns, you should place a sell-stop trade slightly below the lower side of the pattern. In this case, if there is indeed a bearish breakout pattern, the stop trade will be triggered. The initial take profit should be at the lower side of the pennant hoist.

31 related questions found

How do you identify pennants?

A Pennant pattern has to be preceded by a strong up or down move that resembles a flagpole. If there isn't a flagpole, then it's a triangle and not a Pennant. A Pennant tends to form a shallow retracement (typically less than 38% of the flagpole).

What does a bullish pennant look like?

Bullish pennants occur just after a sharp rise in price and resemble a triangular flag as the price moves sideways, making gradually lower highs and higher lows. The uptrend then continues with another similar-sized rise in price.

How reliable are pennant patterns?

The pennant pattern is one that you often see right next to the bull and bear flag pattern in the textbooks, but rarely does anyone talk about its low success rate. While the flag itself isn't an exceptional pattern at just under a 70% success rate, the pennants come in well below that.

Are chart patterns accurate?

Chart patterns are about as reliable as all other trading strategies you can think about. You won't get 100% accuracy, but if you create a strategy around these patterns that is right 60% of the time and yields at least two times your risk as profits on positive entries, you should close most trading years in profit.

What does a double bottom look like?

The double bottom looks like the letter "W". The twice-touched low is considered a support level. The advance of the first bottom should be a drop of 10% to 20%, then the second bottom should form within 3% to 4% of the previous low, and volume on the ensuing advance should increase.

What is a bearish flag?

The bearish flag is a candlestick chart pattern that signals the extension of the downtrend once the temporary pause is finished. As a continuation pattern, the bear flag helps sellers to push the price action further lower.

What is a pennant flag in stocks?

In technical analysis, a pennant is a type of continuation pattern formed when there is a large movement in a security, known as the flagpole, followed by a consolidation period with converging trend lines—the pennant—followed by a breakout movement in the same direction as the initial large movement, which represents ...

What happens after a pennant?

The breakout after a pennant pattern should occur at or near the point where the trendlines converge, called the apex. When dealing with a symmetrical triangle, however, it is optimal for price to break above or below the trendlines one-half to three-quarters of the way through the pattern.

Does Warren Buffett use technical analysis?

“I realized that technical analysis didn't work when I turned the chart upside down and didn't get a different answer.” — Warren Buffett. So many times, when investing in markets, the opposite of what you believe you should do is actually the best bet. This world is not for the faint of heart.

Do professional traders use indicators?

Professional traders who rely on technical analysis use indicators. Professional traders who do not rely on technical patterns tend to keep the use of indicators to a minimum, if at all. Trading indicators analyze the statistical trends of price movements and trading volume to predict market trends.

Do stock patterns matter?

Why Stock Chart Patterns Are Important

This is the core of technical analysis and critical for traders. Patterns tell us what moves might happen. If you're looking to take a trade, you want to know where support and resistance are. Those are key levels where other traders might buy or sell.

Is a pennant pattern bullish?

The bull pennant is a bullish continuation pattern that signals the extension of the uptrend after the period of consolidation is over. Unlike the flag where the price action consolidates within the two parallel lines, the pennant uses two converging lines for consolidation until the breakout occurs.

How reliable are bull flags?

Benefits of Trading Bull Flag Patterns. No pattern in the stock market is 100% reliable. Any pattern could resolve with false moves. But the bull flag pattern is one of the more reliable and effective trading patterns.

What does a bearish chart look like?

A bearish flag formation

A bear flag will look like an inverted bull flag. In a downtrend a bear flag will highlight a slow consolidation higher after an aggressive move lower.

What is a bearish pattern?

What is a Bearish Engulfing Pattern? A bearish engulfing pattern is a technical chart pattern that signals lower prices to come. The pattern consists of an up (white or green) candlestick followed by a large down (black or red) candlestick that eclipses or "engulfs" the smaller up candle.

What a bear flag looks like?

Bearish Flag

The bear flag is an upside down version of the bull flat. It has the same structure as the bull flag but inverted. The flagpole forms on an almost vertical panic price drop as bulls get blindsided from the sellers, then a bounce that has parallel upper and lower trendlines, which form the flag.

Is a triple bottom bullish or bearish?

A triple bottom is a bullish chart pattern used in technical analysis that's characterized by three equal lows followed by a breakout above the resistance level.

Is double top bearish?

A double top is an extremely bearish technical reversal pattern that forms after an asset reaches a high price two consecutive times with a moderate decline between the two highs. It is confirmed once the asset's price falls below a support level equal to the low between the two prior highs.

What is a bearish reversal?

A bearish reversal occurs when a bullish market with an upward trend begins to move in the opposite direction.

What does bearish reversal look like?

Bearish reversal patterns can form with one or more candlesticks; most require bearish confirmation. The actual reversal indicates that selling pressure overwhelmed buying pressure for one or more days, but it remains unclear whether or not sustained selling or lack of buyers will continue to push prices lower.