All Chart Patterns [theEccentricTrader]

29 Jul

█  OVERVIEW


This indicator automatically draws and sends alerts for all of the chart patterns in my public library as they occur. The patterns included are as follows:

• Ascending Broadening
• Broadening
• Descending Broadening
• Double Bottom
• Double Top
• Triple Bottom
• Triple Top
• Bearish Elliot Wave
• Bullish Elliot Wave
• Bearish Alternate Flag
• Bullish Alternate Flag
• Bearish Flag
• Bullish Flag
• Bearish Ascending Head and Shoulders
• Bullish Ascending Head and Shoulders
• Bearish Descending Head and Shoulders
• Bullish Descending Head and Shoulders
• Bearish Head and Shoulders
• Bullish Head and Shoulders
• Bearish Pennant
• Bullish Pennant
• Ascending Wedge
• Descending Wedge
• Wedge


█  CONCEPTS


Green and Red Candles

• A green candle is one that closes with a close price equal to or above the price it opened.
• A red candle is one that closes with a close price that is lower than the price it opened.

Swing Highs and Swing Lows

• A swing high is a green candle or series of consecutive green candles followed by a single red candle to complete the swing and form the peak.
• A swing low is a red candle or series of consecutive red candles followed by a single green candle to complete the swing and form the trough.

Peak and Trough Prices

• The peak price of a complete swing high is the high price of either the red candle that completes the swing high or the high price of the preceding green candle, depending on which is higher.
• The trough price of a complete swing low is the low price of either the green candle that completes the swing low or the low price of the preceding red candle, depending on which is lower.

Historic Peaks and Troughs

The current, or most recent, peak and trough occurrences are referred to as occurrence zero. Previous peak and trough occurrences are referred to as historic and ordered numerically from right to left, with the most recent historic peak and trough occurrences being occurrence one.

Upper Trends

• A return line uptrend is formed when the current peak price is higher than the preceding peak price.
• A downtrend is formed when the current peak price is lower than the preceding peak price.
• A double-top is formed when the current peak price is equal to the preceding peak price.

Lower Trends

• An uptrend is formed when the current trough price is higher than the preceding trough price.
• A return line downtrend is formed when the current trough price is lower than the preceding trough price.
• A double-bottom is formed when the current trough price is equal to the preceding trough price.

Range

The range is simply the difference between the current peak and current trough prices, generally expressed in terms of points or pips.

Retracement and Extension Ratios

Retracement and extension ratios are calculated by dividing the current range by the preceding range and multiplying the answer by 100. Retracement ratios are those that are equal to or below 100% of the preceding range and extension ratios are those that are above 100% of the preceding range.

Measurement Tolerances

Tolerance refers to the allowable variation or deviation from a specific value or dimension. It is the range within which a particular measurement is considered to be acceptable or accurate. I have applied this concept in my pattern detection logic and have set default tolerances where applicable, as perfect patterns are, needless to say, very rare.

Chart Patterns

Generally speaking price charts are nothing more than a series of swing highs and swing lows. When demand outweighs supply over a period of time prices swing higher and when supply outweighs demand over a period of time prices swing lower. These swing highs and swing lows can form patterns that offer insight into the prevailing supply and demand dynamics at play at the relevant moment in time.

‘Let us assume… that you the reader, are not a member of that mysterious inner circle known to the boardrooms as “the insiders”… But it is fairly certain that there are not nearly so many “insiders” as amateur trader supposes and… It is even more certain that insiders can be wrong… Any success they have, however, can be accomplished only by buying and selling… [And] [t]hey can do neither without altering the delicate poise of supply and demand that governs prices. Whatever they do is sooner or later reflected on the charts where you… can detect it. Or detect, at least, the way in which the supply-demand equation is being affected… So, you do not need to be an insider to ride with them frequently… prices move in trends. Some of those trends are straight, some are curved; some are brief and some are long and continued… produced in a series of action and reaction waves of great uniformity. Sooner or later, these trends change direction; they may reverse (as from up to down), or they may be interrupted by some sort of sideways movement and then, after a time, proceed again in their former direction… when a price trend is in the process of reversal… a characteristic area or pattern takes shape on the chart, which becomes recognisable as a reversal formation… Needless to say, the first and most important task of the technical chart analyst is to learn to know the important reversal formations and to judge what they may signify in terms of trading opportunities’ (Edwards & Magee, 1948).

This is as true today as it was when Edwards and Magee were writing in the first half of the last Century, study your patterns and make judgements for yourself about what their implications truly are on the markets and timeframes you are interested in trading.

Over the years, traders have come to discover a multitude of chart and candlestick patterns that are supposed to pertain information on future price movements. However, it is never so clear cut in practice and patterns that where once considered to be reversal patterns are now considered to be continuation patterns and vice versa. Bullish patterns can have bearish implications and bearish patterns can have bullish implications. As such, I would highly encourage you to do your own backtesting.

There is no denying that chart patterns exist, but their implications will vary from market to market and timeframe to timeframe. So it is down to you as an individual to study them and make decisions about how they may be used in a strategic sense.


█  INPUTS


• Change pattern and label colours
• Show or hide patterns individually
• Adjust pattern ratios and tolerances
• Set or remove alerts for individual patterns


█  NOTES


I have decided to rename some of my previously published patterns based on the way in which the pattern completes. If the pattern completes on a swing high then the pattern is considered bearish, if the pattern completes on a swing low then it is considered bullish. This may seem confusing but it makes sense when you come to backtesting the patterns and want to use the most recent peak or trough prices as stop losses. Patterns that can complete on both a swing high and swing low are for such reasons treated as neutral, namely all broadening and wedge variations. I trust that it is quite self-evident that double and triple bottom patterns are considered bullish while double and triple top patterns are considered bearish, so I did not feel the need to rename those.

The patterns that have been renamed and what they have been renamed to, are as follows:

• Ascending Elliot Waves to Bearish Elliot Waves
• Descending Elliot Waves to Bullish Elliot Waves
• Ascending Head and Shoulders to Bearish Ascending Head and Shoulders
• Descending Head and Shoulders to Bearish Descending Head and Shoulders
• Head and Shoulders to Bearish Head and Shoulders
• Ascending Inverse Head and Shoulders to Bullish Ascending Head and Shoulders
• Descending Inverse Head and Shoulders to Bullish Descending Head and Shoulders
• Inverse Head and Shoulders to Bullish Head and Shoulders

You can test the patterns with your own strategies manually by applying the indicator to your chart while in bar replay mode and playing through the history. You could also automate this process with PineScript by using the conditions from my swing and pattern libraries as entry conditions in the strategy tester or your own custom made strategy screener.

█  LIMITATIONS


All green and red candle calculations are based on differences between open and close prices, as such I have made no attempt to account for green candles that gap lower and close below the close price of the preceding candle, or red candles that gap higher and close above the close price of the preceding candle. This may cause some unexpected behaviour on some markets and timeframes. I can only recommend using 24-hour markets, if and where possible, as there are far fewer gaps and, generally, more data to work with.


█  SOURCES


Edwards, R., & Magee, J. (1948) Technical Analysis of Stock Trends (10th edn). Reprint, Boca Raton, Florida: Taylor and Francis Group, CRC Press: 2013.

5 Sep

Catatan Rilis

Corrected an error in the descending wedge pattern call.