Place a stop buy order slightly above the upper trend line of the handle. 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.

A loose, choppy base shows the stock needs to go far for price discovery. If institutions are holding on to the stock, it won’t fall too far. Try to limit your picks to cups that are no more than 30% or 33% deep, except for Investment those built during a bear market. In that case, an exceptional growth stock can fall 40%, 50% or more and still make a successful breakout. If there is no handle, then the cup itself must stretch a minimum six weeks.

Once you learn what is Cup and Handle pattern you have no more excuses not to have a chance to succeed in trading. In the technical analysis field, the Cup and Handle pattern is one of the most profitable chart patterns. The Cup and Handle trading strategy is providing you with an effective way to exploit this pattern. The cup and handle pattern is a bullish continuation pattern.

You’re going to be right there with us, shoulder to shoulder learning the markets from people who give a hoot about you. Candlesticks forming the handle will give you warnings about what’s going to happen. If the handle breakout fails, there was probably candlestick warnings along the way .

For confluence, I also found a bullish MACD cross and a falling wedge in the RSI. If the cup and handle I drew seems outrageous, there is always the possibility that the handle can be a Bull Pennant which is also a bullish chart pattern. Whatever the height of the cup is, add that height to the breakout point of the handle.

If you see a large sell-off from Resistance, it invalidates the pattern, and it tells you the market is not ready to head higher. After the Cup is formed, the market has shown signs of bottoming as it makes higher lows towards Resistance. He is the most followed trader in Singapore with more than 100,000 traders reading his blog every month… A price target could be between 20%-30% but they can go higher and of course they can also fall back in price and fail which is why a stop loss is always important. Whether the market is up, down, or sideways, the Option Strategies Insider membership gives traders the power to consistently beat any market. A handle can form anywhere between mid-cup and above cup .

The limit portion controls the price paid in case there is gap higher or very little volume until a much higher price. A half-cup is when the handle occurs in the upper half of the cup but below the prior high. My Complete Method Stock Swing Trading Course covers this pattern in-depth, with lots more variations and tips, plus other strategies as well. I use this strategy often, especially when the major indexes (like the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Dow Jones Industrial) are near prior highs or heading that way. The price then started to decline and reached a low of $1050 in October 2015.

The Head And Shoulders Pattern: How To Trade Tops And Bottoms

The subsequent decline ended within two points of the initial public offering price, far exceeding O’Neil’s requirement for a shallow cup high in the prior trend. The subsequent recovery wave reached the prior high in 2011, nearly four years after the first print. The handle follows the classic pullback expectation, finding support at the 50% retracement in a rounded shape, and returns to the high for a second time 14 months later. The stock broke out in October 2013 and added 90 points in the following five months. The tables turn once again when the decline stalls high in the broad trading range, giving way to narrow sideways action.

An Investors.com chart will also tell you in real time how volume is running in comparison with typical level at that time of the trading session. If you’re not ready to take on the live markets, you can open a risk-free demo account to identify the cup and handle pattern and practice your trades. Knowing how to read and interpret charts is one of the most important aspects of trading.

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Make sure it doesn’t exceed the cup portion in time or size of decline. A good cup with handle should truly look like the silhouette of a nicely formed tea cup. The handle always shows a smaller decline from high to low; it represents a final shakeout of uncommitted holders, sending those shares into sturdier hands in the market. The handle can be either a small, unorganized pullback, or a bear flag or pennant.

Might not see the lid tested until 2024, with the full trade playing out potentially as long as 2029. The Cup with Handle is a bullish continuation pattern world currencies that marks a consolidation period followed by a breakout. It was developed by William O’Neil and introduced in his 1988 book, How to Make Money in Stocks.

How To Trade The Cup And Handle Chart Pattern

If the price oscillated up and down a number of times within the handle, a stop-loss might also be placed below the most recent swing low. While the price is expected to rise, that doesn’t mean it will. The price could rise a little and then fall, it could move sideways, or it could fall right after entry. Since we’re splitting our trade into two trades, we’re going to have two protective stop loss.

Measure the distance from the cup high to the cup low and project that same distance beginning at the handle’s low point. So long as the handle remains in the upper half of the cup, this level of price projection leads to an attractive risk-to-reward ratio on the trade. The cup and handle pattern starts with an uptrend, followed by a 30–50% correction. Use the Fibonacci retracement tool to measure out the previous uptrend, then look for the correction to retrace near the 30–50% zone. History also indicates that Gold could rise beyond the log target.

There is a risk of missing the trade if the price continues to advance and does not pull back. I cup and handle chart pattern ideally takes place early in bull markets when the stock indexes are trading over their 200-day simple moving averages. The image above displays the standard cup and handle pattern. To trade this formation correctly, a trader should place a stop by order slightly above the upper trendline that makes up the handle.

To identify the cup and handle formation O’Neil claims the handle should extend no longer than one-fifth to one-quarter the length of the cup. The handle will remain close to the prior highs, which will squeeze out the short-sellers and cause new buyers to enter the market. The cup and handle pattern gets its name because it looks exactly like that.

Example Inverted Pattern

If the pattern is bearish, take the two bottoms of the cup and stretch a curved line upwards until the rounded part reaches the top of the pattern. Take the right side of the cup afterwards and draw the shape of the bullish handle. Here we are looking at the H4 chart of the GBP/USD Forex pair for May 5 – June 8, 2016. You will see the bearish Cup and Handle pattern on this chart. Notice that the pattern comes after a bullish trend, which means it acts as a reversal.

Slowly, the stock begins to drift lower as those seeking to lock-in profits outnumber those intrigued by the story. The intraday pattern operates similarly but concludes more quickly. In the Bitcoin example above, we are using a 4-hour chart.

As more bears come, the price moves lower to a certain point. Bulls then start coming in and take the price to the previous high.Bears come in again and push the price lower. Traders take a long position once the top of the cup breaks and holds.

The pattern is confirmed when the market breaks above the highest price of the handle. There are a couple of variations to this pattern that crypto traders need to be aware of. First, there are times when the handle portion of the pattern develops above the old high. This is considered the “high handle.” Secondly, since the market is fractal, these patterns will form on a variety of charting time frames, including intraday charts. Stop buy orders can be used to automatically trade a breakout above the handle’s upper trendline or above the level of the right side of the cup. This includes drawing trendlines for the handles to highlight the breakout points, notes to mark important areas, or arrows to highlight potential entry and exit points.

• This results in a wide stop loss and a smaller position size on your trade.
• Then it’s followed by a retracement back down, creating a cup-like bottom, or a rounded bottom.
• The rounded bottom really shows the buyers are in control and thus new highs should be expected.
• The pattern consists of five key components, which then lead to a breakout higher.

The shorter the retracement in terms of both time and distance, the more bullish the pattern. The confirmation signal of the figure comes at the moment when the price action breaks the handle downwards. After the bearish Cup with Handle signal, you can start pursuing the bearish potential of the pattern. When you are day trading cup and handle patterns, you must realize that not all handles are created equally. The funny thing about the formation is that while the handle is the smallest portion of the pattern, it is actually the most important. The cup is in the shape of a “U” and the handle can be sideways or even have a slight downward drift that occurs near the “lip” of the cup.

Buy when the price breaks above the top of the channel or triangle. When the price moves out of the handle, the pattern is considered complete, and the price is expected to rise. For example, if a cup forms between $99 and $100, the handle should form between $100 and $99.50, and ideally between $100 and $99.65. If the handle is too deep, and it erases most of the gains of the cup, then avoid trading the pattern. That recovery swing may end at the old high or exceed it by a few points and then reverse, adding downside fuel because it traps two groups of buyers. First, longs entering deep in the pattern get nervous because they were betting on a breakout that fails.

Homma realized they needed a way to gauge how traders felt against the price of rice. The confirmation of the pattern comes in at the green circle at the moment when the price action moves above the handle. You would typically look to buy the AUD/USD Forex pair when the candle closes above the handle.

We automated this backtesting process using the pattern recognition API ofHarmonicPattern.com harmonic scanner. If you’re day trading and the target is not reached by the end of the day, close the position before the market closes for the day. A trailing stop-loss may also be used to get out of a position that moves close to the target but then starts to drop again. By having the handle and stop-loss in the upper third of the cup, the stop-loss stays closer to the entry point, which helps improve the risk-reward ratio of the trade.

Stop Looking For A Quick Fix Learn To Trade The Right Way

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. The shape is formed when there’s a price wave down, which is then followed by a stabilization period, followed again by a rally of approximately the same size as the prior trend.

At the end of the reversed bearish move, the price reverses again and starts the creation of a bullish handle. The bullish Cup and Handle pattern is the one we have been discussing so far. It starts with a bearish price move, which gradually reverses. The new bullish move finishes approximately around the top of the prior bearish move.

The Cup And Handle Is A Bullish Continuation Pattern

You need to know if that cup with handle is as it should be, or if it has flaws. Check out this step-by-step guide to learn how to find the best opportunities every single day. You could also place an order above or below the handle to buy or sell when the asset reaches a more favourable price. An order allows you to open a position at a price you choose, rather than the one currently being quoted. Remember that you should always use your knowledge and risk appetite to decide if you are going to trade based on ‘buy’ or ‘sell’ signals.

As a result of this behavior, investors generally see the handle as the place in which to buy. A stock’s price will dip while it is in the handle, but in a true cup-and-handle pattern this dip will not endure. It typically represents technical analysis rather than a shift in the stock’s fundamental value. As a result, once this post-recovery trading has finished an investor can expect the stock to resume its previous growth. The handle alone needs at least five days to form, but it could go on for weeks.

Sometimes a shallower cup can be a signal, while other times a deep cup can produce a false signal. Sometimes the cup forms without the characteristic handle. Finally, one limitation shared across many technical patterns is that it can be unreliable in illiquid stocks.

The next session Wall Street analysts make positive comments and the stock surges to a new high on dramatically increased volume. A cup-and-handle pattern, illustrated below, is considered a bullish trading trend. It represents a consolidation period for a strong asset, during which traders move away from a stock, which is generally growing well. After this short-term consolidation the stock recovers its lost value and resumes its previous growth. The second example is another classic cup and handle pattern that develops over three to four months, with the handle forming over approximately two weeks. The cup retraces slightly more than half the preceding movement, which is relatively mature prior to the cup and handle pattern’s formation.

At that point, the cup of the pattern was completed and the handle was about to begin. The pricing of the handle remained within the upper portion of the cup, so all of the necessary ingredients were present for a bullish breakout. Additionally, the handle needs to stay in the upper half of the cup and not drop into the lower half of the cup’s price range. For example, if the cup forms between a price range of $1.0 to $2.0, then the handle needs to form within $1.50 to $2.0. If the handle pushes too low, then it will be ineffective at trapping short sellers.

The cup and handle forms as an intermediate/secondary cycle correction before the primary cycle resumes its up-trend. Now that we learned what a Cup and Handle pattern is, it’s time to look beyond the price action. Then understand the psychology behind this profitable trading pattern. No one can explain how to trade cup and handle pattern better that way you have explained in this short article. Finally, when the price breaks out of Resistance, the cup and handle pattern is “confirmed”, and the market could move higher.

Days Of Ibd Deals!

A continuation pattern is another trade opportunity to watch for. It is when a handle forms, as described above, but within the context of a big strong uptrend . There are several benefits of using the cup and handle pattern.

These trend lines should have a slight downward slant to them. The important trend line is the resistance trend line, which is the top line. If prices break above resistance on rising volume, then the market will likely continue its trend higher. To trade the cup and handle pattern, wait for technical levels of resistance to break. There are two areas where traders can buy the resistance break. To spot a true inverted cup and handle pattern, the shape needs to be obvious and the trend line needs to curve up and then down like an upside-down cup.

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. The cup pattern happens first and then a handle happens next.

Depending on their preference, traders see the breakout signal in various ways. Some traders view the level of resistance taken from the horizontal between the highs of the cup. Other traders make use of a handle break trend line as a point to place a long entry.

The cup has a soft U-shape, retraces the prior move for about ⅓ and looks like a bowl. After forming the cup, price pulls back to about ⅓ of the cups advance, forming the handle. The handle is a relatively short period of consolidation. The full pattern is complete when price breaks out of this consolidation in the direction of the cups advance. The image below depicts a classic cup and handle formation.

Is Cup And Handle Bullish?

Additionally, as the right side of the cup is created, we need to observe several bullish candles on rising trade volume. An easy way to figure this out is to place a 50-period moving average on top of the volume. The target for the cup and handle pattern is fairly simple.

Sometimes the left side of the cup is a different height than the right. Use the smaller height, and add it to the breakout point for a conservative target. The cup can be spread out from 1 to 6 months, occasionally longer. Ideally, the handle will form and complete over 1-4 weeks.

The handle lasts a few weeks before price begins moving up. Raise the stop as price rises.ThrowbacksThrowbacks hurt performance.Short handleStocks with handles shorter than the median 22 days show superior post breakout performance. To identify the cup and handle pattern, begin by following the movement of price on the chart. The pattern forms when it notices a sharp downward price movement over a short period. This is followed by a time where the price remains quite stable. Subsequently, there’s a rally that is almost equal to the previous decline.

In my opinion, the cup and handle pattern can be both a continuation pattern and a reversal pattern. The cup and handle pattern is a common method you can use to analyse the trend of assets. You can use it to analyse stocks, currencies, bonds, commodities, and index funds among others. It then cup and handle chart pattern finds some support and moves upwards again and finds resistance around the 50% retracement. It then moves downwards and forms an inverse of a cup, rises slightly and then continues falling. Third, it shows you the potential level to watch out when the price experiences a bullish breakout.

Author: Martin Essex