Chart pattern · Continuation · Bullish
What is it, in one line
A rounded cup followed by a shorter shallow pullback, the handle, before the prior advance resumes.
Bullish · Continuation · verdict: Traditional claim, not yet measured here
A rounded cup followed by a shorter shallow pullback, the handle, before the prior advance resumes.
Method
Conventional target: A break above the handle’s high projects a rise equal to the cup’s depth.
Invalidated by: A handle that retraces more than roughly a third of the cup invalidates the pattern.
A bowl — the middle of the last three swing lows is the deepest — whose two rim highs sit within a tolerance band, followed by a handle: the most recent swing low is ABOVE both outer bowl lows and within maxHandleAtr of the rim.
The traditional claim
Read as a bullish continuation, resolving above the rim.
How this detection is wrong
The handle is what distinguishes this from a rounding bottom, and requiring it to sit near the rim is what stops any pullback qualifying.
Published so the count can be reproduced. Every figure below is a parameter of the rule, not a preference: change one and the occurrence count changes with it.
| Parameter | Meaning | Default |
|---|---|---|
| pivotLeft | bars to the left of a swing | 3 |
| pivotRight | bars to the right before a swing is confirmed | 3 |
| lookback | bars searched for the swings | 120 |
| atrPeriod | bars of ATR used to size everything below | 14 |
| flatTol | how level two points must be | 0.02 |
| minSepAtr | separation required between swings, in ATR | 1 |
| maxHandleAtr | handle depth permitted, in ATR | 8 |
These share enough geometry that a detector can return more than one of them on the same bar. The engine reports every match rather than picking a winner.
Every pair on the site that can be mistaken for another, and what separates each: the look-alikes index.
A bowl — the middle of the last three swing lows is the deepest — whose two rim highs sit within a tolerance band, followed by a handle: the most recent swing low is ABOVE both outer bowl lows and within maxHandleAtr of the rim. The detector also requires a prior uptrend, so the same shape in the wrong context is not counted.
It is read as bullish. Read as a bullish continuation, resolving above the rim.
The handle is what distinguishes this from a rounding bottom, and requiring it to sit near the rim is what stops any pullback qualifying.
As an executable rule over open, high, low and close, with 7 named parameters — including bars to the left of a swing 3, bars to the right before a swing is confirmed 3, bars searched for the swings 120 — all published on this page so the count can be reproduced. Strict and loose variants are defined as well, so the sensitivity of the count to those thresholds is visible rather than assumed.
Measurement pending re-run
No hit rate is published here yet. The run that would supply one was computed on engine ca6d9e36c81c; the engine is now cfb08765de7c. Its candlestick rows included the still-forming bar, and it predates the chart formations entirely, so those figures have been withdrawn rather than published with a caveat. The definition above is unaffected: it is what the detector tests, and no re-run changes it.