Win rate29%N=8
TTDTarget: $15.36-$4.76-23.7%
Lead-in rally+4.7%Target-23.7%Volhighest 96%
A descending triangle forms when a stock keeps landing on the same floor while each bounce fades sooner. Here's how to recognize both possible break directions, protect shares you own, and read TradingPal's historical results without treating them as a forecast.
4 formed in the last 45 days, caught by our screener.
A descending triangle is a pattern where a stock's price keeps falling to the same floor — say $40, again and again — while each bounce off that floor tops out a little lower than the last one. Draw a flat floor and a falling ceiling, and you get a triangle pressing down on a ledge. If those price roles are new to you, the support and resistance guide explains them first.
One way traders interpret the shape is that demand keeps meeting price at the floor while sellers accept lower bounce prices. That story explains the bearish lean; it does not prove the next break. The historical test below measures both directions.
Like its mirror image the ascending triangle, it doesn't need a sharp move in front of it and usually builds over weeks rather than days.
Checking a chart by hand? You're looking for all four of these:
The tricky part of doing this by hand is honesty: it's easy to draw the lines you want to see. Two dips at $40.10 and $39.70 — is that a flat floor or not? Our screener draws the lines the same strict way on every chart, every night, so the answer never depends on mood.
A triangle can break either way, so we show you both sides. When it breaks downward it trades like a bear pennant; the upward break trades like a bull pennant. Below is the latest completed published result for each direction, using the entry and exit rules described here. See how TradingPal backtests patterns for the full method and its confirmation limitation.
Treat the numbers as a record over many trades, not a promise about the next one. The result comes from the combination of hit rate and the measured size of every win and loss, including exits worse than planned. A 50% win rate can make or lose money; average R and profit factor tell you which happened here. Use the track-record metrics guide to read the result as a whole.
Historical results of the simulated strategy above, refreshed nightly — not a prediction. How we test →
Our screener re-draws these lines on 500+ stocks every night. Here's what its latest scan flagged as a current descending triangle.
4 fresh descending triangles formed in the last 45 days across our growing universe of 600+ scanned tickers (33 charts tracked for this pattern in total). Scan updated Jul 2, 2026.
One real descending triangle — detected on TTD.
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4 matching setupsin this guide's latest scan.
A breakdown is useful two ways. If you own shares, a descending triangle breaking its floor is the chart's warning that the slide may be resuming — a cue to protect yourself or step aside. Traders can also profit from the fall directly by “shorting” (borrowing shares to sell now and buying them back cheaper later). The three steps below serve both readers.
Everything here comes from rules we've tested on thousands of historical trades. Tap through the three steps to see each one drawn on the chart. For a quick primer on entry, stop, target, and R, read risk/reward and R-multiples.
After the detector could establish the triangle on the prior bar, the simulation rests an order at the confirmed trigger—the flat floor minus its required threshold. It fills on the first eligible bar that reaches that level; a gap below it fills at 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.
Just before the breakdown, the price puts in one last weak bounce off the floor (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. The historical win rate assumes that same exit rule.
Measure the triangle's height at its widest point—the first bounce top down to the floor—and project that distance down from the trigger. A bearish break takes its result at that measured-move target. A bullish break follows the tested ride rule after its upside target, trailing the 10-day average.
The trade starts the moment price pushes through the line — an order set there in advance gets the first realistic price.
Textbooks usually call it bearish because each bounce stops lower above one flat floor. That is an interpretation of the shape, not proof of what sellers intend. The latest stored results above show what the tested rules actually did in both directions.
A descending triangle in an uptrend can be a warning that the rise is weakening. Some also break up through the falling ceiling instead. You don't have to predict either outcome: the confirmed trigger decides whether a trade begins and in which direction.
Completed examples — wins and losses, with real dates and results from our nightly test. Each links to that stock's live chart.
The three triangle patterns are siblings. What separates them is which line is doing the work:
The mirror image: a flat ceiling caps price while the dips get shallower. It has a bullish historical lean, with the upside trigger defining the tested trade.
Both lines slope toward each other — highs stepping down while lows step up. The shape alone does not choose a side, so the tested trade waits for the confirmed trigger.
A much smaller, faster squeeze that only counts when it follows a steep drop (the “pole”). A descending triangle stands on its own and takes weeks to build.
An ascending triangle forms when a stock keeps meeting the same ceiling while each dip stops a little higher.
A symmetrical triangle is a stock coiling tighter and tighter — lower highs and higher lows squeezing toward a point — with neither buyers nor sellers in charge.
A bear pennant is a short breather after a stock falls hard.
Educational content, not investment advice. Backtest statistics are historical results of a simulated strategy, refreshed nightly — they describe the past, not the next trade.