A descending triangle is a chart shape where a stock keeps landing on the same floor price while its bounces get weaker — sellers pressing harder while buyers defend one line. It usually resolves with a drop through the floor. Here's how to recognize it, what it means for a stock you own, and how often it works.
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 line under those equal lows and a falling line across the fading bounces, and you get a triangle pressing down on a ledge.
The story behind the shape: someone keeps buying shares at that floor price, catching every drop. But sellers come back sooner and accept less on every bounce. Eventually the buyer at the floor runs out of appetite — and with no one left catching the drops, the price falls through.
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 rarer upward break trades like a bull pennant. Below are the live results of our nightly backtest for each direction — every trade simulated with the exact rules this guide teaches.
Treat the numbers as odds over many trades, not a promise about the next one. The edge comes from the combination: a hit rate better than a coin flip, losers kept small by the safety exit, and winners measured honestly.
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.
6 fresh descending triangles formed in the last 45 days across the 500+ stocks we scan (41 charts tracked for this pattern in total). Scan updated Jul 2, 2026.
A real descending triangle from the latest scan — detected 2026-06-30 on CVNA. Live chart, live lines.
5 more live descending triangle setups — every chart, breakout level, and target.
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.
The flat floor is the line that matters. Set the order right at it, in advance, so the trade starts the moment the price pushes through. If the stock opens the day already past the line (it “gapped” overnight), the fill is that morning's opening price. Don't wait for the big breakdown day to close and enter then — same trade, worse price. Across roughly 54,000 backtested pattern trades, entering at the line won just as often but made about 28% more overall than entering at the breakout day's close.
Just before the breakdown, the price puts in one last weak bounce off the floor (the “swing high”). If the price later climbs back above that bounce, the breakdown has failed — the trade ends, at a small, known cost. You choose this exit BEFORE the trade starts; every win rate on this page assumes it.
Measure the triangle's height at its widest point — the first bounce top down to the floor — and project that distance DOWN from the floor. That's the target (the “measured move”), and a downward break banks its result there. The rare descending triangle that breaks UP instead trades like a bull pennant: stay in while the price holds above its average of the last 10 days (the “10-day moving average”), and exit when a day finally closes below it — in our testing that made more money than selling at the target.
The trade starts the moment price pushes through the line — an order set there in advance gets the first realistic price.
Usually bearish. The falling ceiling means sellers are pressing lower on every bounce while one floor absorbs the damage, and most descending triangles resolve with a breakdown through that floor. A descending triangle in a downtrend is the cleanest case: the fall pauses, coils against the floor, then continues (a “continuation” pattern).
A descending triangle in an uptrend — forming after a long rise — reads differently: it's an early warning that the rise may be topping out. And some descending triangles simply break UP through the falling ceiling instead. You don't have to predict any of this: the trade only starts when a line actually breaks, and the direction of that break decides everything.
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 keeps rejecting the price while the dips get shallower. It leans bullish — the usual break is up through the ceiling.
Both lines slope toward each other — highs stepping down while lows step up. Neither side is in charge, so the breakout direction is closer to a coin flip.
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.
Educational content, not investment advice. Backtest statistics are historical results of a simulated strategy, refreshed nightly — they describe the past, not the next trade.