Studio note ·
Triangles that never meant to leave
A tightening range is not automatically a continuation pattern. Many of the triangles brought to Weekend Chart Desk are simply tired markets.
Textbook triangles rest after a trend and then resume. Live triangles often rest after a trend and then dissolve into a drift. The difference is rarely visible in the first three touches. It becomes visible when later touches fail to respect the same two lines, or when the apex arrives with no energy left in the range.
During drills we ask a blunt question: can you still name the prior trend in one sentence? If the answer is a shrug, we do not file the drawing as a continuation triangle. We file it as a coil without a parent move. That coil may still break. It does not inherit the textbook measuring implication.
Symmetry is overrated. Ascending and descending boundaries can be honest. What we distrust is the triangle drawn with one touch on one side and five on the other, then sold as 'almost there'. Pattern study is a craft of enough evidence, not of impatience dressed as geometry.