Win rate22%N=23
LENTarget: $77.73-$9.64-11.0%
Lead-in rally+6.3%Target-11.0%Volhigh 66%
A bear pennant is a short breather after a stock falls hard. Here's how to recognize the shape, what it can mean for shares you own, how a rule-based short works, and what TradingPal's historical test found—including the losses.
51 formed in the last 45 days, caught by our screener.
A bear pennant (also called a bearish pennant) is a pause that forms right after a stock falls hard and fast. The selling stops for a moment and the price drifts sideways in smaller and smaller swings, squeezing into a little triangle — a small flag, or pennant, hanging at the bottom of a flagpole.
One way traders interpret the shape is that the first drop paused rather than ended. That is a story, not proof; the historical result below measures what happened when the same trigger and exit rules were applied repeatedly.
You'll see the same shape called a bear pennant pattern, a bearish pennant flag, or a pennant in a downtrend — the names blur together. What matters is the two ingredients: a steep pole down, then a tight squeeze — the exact mirror image of a bull pennant.
Checking a chart by hand? Look for all four of these:
Traders often look for volume (shares changing hands) to quiet inside the pennant and expand on the break. Treat that as context, not confirmation by itself; TradingPal's test follows the defined price trigger.
We don't quote textbook folklore—we run the pattern over years of daily price history for hundreds of stocks, simulate the declared entry and exit rules, and count what happened. The numbers below are served from the latest completed published artifact. See how TradingPal backtests patterns for the full method and its confirmation limitation.
Read the hit rate as a long-run record, not a forecast. Look at the displayed win rate beside average R, payoff ratio, profit factor, and sample size to see what the measured wins and losses actually produced. The track-record metrics guide shows how those numbers fit together.
Historical results of the simulated strategy described above (1986-12-12 – 2026-06-12), refreshed nightly — not a prediction. How we test →
Our screener re-draws the lines on 500+ stocks every night and flags each chart that currently fits the checklist above. Here's what it found in its latest scan.
51 fresh bearish pennants formed in the last 45 days across our growing universe of 600+ scanned tickers (570 charts tracked for this pattern in total). Scan updated Jul 2, 2026.
One real bearish pennant — detected on LEN.
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51 matching setupsin this guide's latest scan.
The stocks with the strongest historical hit rate for this pattern in our backtest (minimum sample applied).
| Stock | Win rate | Avg return | Trades |
|---|---|---|---|
| EXEExpand Energy | 87.5% | +1.31R | 8 |
| STXSeagate Technology | 77.8% | +1.14R | 18 |
| BROBrown & Brown | 75.0% | +0.85R | 16 |
| BACBank Of America | 75.0% | +0.87R | 16 |
| ABBVAbbvie | 75.0% | +1.52R | 8 |
| CPRTCopart | 73.1% | +0.89R | 26 |
| PMPhilip Morris International | 72.7% | +1.59R | 11 |
| PDDPinduoduo | 72.7% | +0.68R | 11 |
| AMPAmeriprise Financial | 72.7% | +1.53R | 11 |
| BLKBlackrock | 72.2% | +1.33R | 18 |
First, what a breakdown is for. If you own the stock, a bear pennant breaking lower is a warning that the fall may not be finished—a cue to review risk or step aside. Traders can also take a bearish position by “shorting”—borrowing shares to sell now and buying them back later. Both readers use the same three steps below.
Everything here comes from rules we've tested on thousands of historical trades. Tap through the three steps to see each one on the chart. If entry, stop, target, or R is new to you, start with risk/reward and R-multiples.
After the detector could establish the pennant on the prior bar, the simulation rests an order at the confirmed trigger—the lower boundary minus its required threshold. It fills on the first eligible bar that reaches that level; if the stock gaps below it, the fill is the worse opening price. In an A/B across roughly 54,000 trades, this confirmed-level first-poke and breakout-close entry both won about 53% of the time, while the first-poke produced roughly 28% more total R.
Right before the breakdown, the price makes one final small bounce (traders call it the “swing high”). That level defines the planned invalidation. The test exits at the close of a later bar that closes beyond it, so an overshoot or gap can lose more than the planned 1R. Every win-rate number on this page assumes that same exit rule.
Measure the pennant's height at its widest point and project that distance down from the breakout point—that is the target (the “measured move”). The tested bearish policy takes its result there; the rare bear pennant that breaks up instead follows the bullish trailing rule after its upside target.
The trade starts the moment price pushes through the line — an order set there in advance gets the first realistic price.
Bearish-leaning. A bear pennant sits after a steep drop, but the shape is not a promise about the next move. The latest completed record above shows how often the defined downside trigger and exit rules followed through.
You'll sometimes see searches for a “bearish pennant reversal”—the case where the pennant breaks up instead of down. There's no hidden pattern behind that name: it is a bear pennant that failed, which is why the trade carries a pre-decided exit instead of a prediction.
The honest way to judge a pattern is to watch completed examples — winners and losers. These are real, recent bear-pennant trades from our nightly test, each linked to that stock's live chart.
These names get tangled constantly. What separates them is the shape of the pause and the direction of the pole.
The pause drifts gently upward between two parallel lines—a small tilted rectangle—instead of squeezing to a point. Same steep pole down, same bearish lean.
The mirror image: a sharp run up, then the same tight squeeze with a bullish historical lean. The pole, trigger direction, and safety-exit side all flip.
Also leans bearish, but its floor is flat—the same price keeps catching every drop—and it builds over weeks without needing a pole in front.
A bull pennant is a short breather after a stock runs higher.
A descending triangle forms when a stock keeps landing on the same floor while each bounce fades sooner.
A rising wedge can look healthy because price is still climbing, but each push up is losing ground.
Educational content, not investment advice. Backtest statistics are historical results of a simulated strategy, refreshed nightly — they describe the past, not the next trade.