A rising wedge looks healthy at first glance — the price is climbing. But the climb is shrinking in a very specific way, and that's the tell: this pattern usually resolves with a break DOWN. Here's how to recognize a real one, what it means for a stock you own, and how often it has actually worked.
A rising wedge is a climb that's running out of energy. The price is still making higher highs and higher lows, but each push up travels less than the one before it — so the line across the tops and the line under the bottoms both slope up AND squeeze toward each other, like a funnel tilted uphill.
That narrowing is the rising wedge pattern's meaning. Buyers are still in charge, but they're accomplishing less with every push, while sellers show up a little earlier each time. When the buying finally dries up, there isn't much holding the price up — which is why a rising wedge, despite pointing up, usually resolves downward.
You'll find it in two places: a rising wedge in an uptrend, where a long rally grinds into one final, narrowing push (a topping pattern), or as a slow-motion bounce inside a bigger decline, where it usually marks the spot the fall resumes.
Checking a chart by hand? All four of these need to be true:
The classic mistake is mistaking a rising CHANNEL for a rising wedge. If the two lines run parallel — the price climbing a steady corridor — nothing is being squeezed, and there's no warning in it. The wedge needs the pinch.
We run the rising wedge over years of daily history for hundreds of stocks, simulate every trade with the exact rules this guide teaches, and publish what happened — winners, losers, and the average result. The numbers refresh after every nightly scan.
Read them as odds across many trades. A single rising wedge proves nothing; a thousand of them, traded with small losers and measured winners, is where the edge shows up.
Historical results of the simulated strategy described above (1986-12-18 – 2026-06-11), refreshed nightly — not a prediction. How we test →
The stocks with the strongest historical hit rate for this pattern in our backtest (minimum sample applied).
| Stock | Win rate | Avg return | Trades |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBOECboe Global Markets | 88.9% | +1.28R | 9 |
| CHTRCharter Communications | 85.7% | +1.80R | 14 |
| MRVLMarvell Technology | 81.3% | +1.21R | 16 |
| DGDollar General | 80.0% | +0.65R | 10 |
| CFCf Industries Holdings | 77.8% | +1.24R | 18 |
| FIXComfort Systems | 77.8% | +0.73R | 18 |
| OTISOtis Worldwide | 77.8% | +1.08R | 9 |
| ZSZscaler | 75.0% | +1.17R | 8 |
| CCEPCoca-Cola European Partners | 74.3% | +0.87R | 35 |
| CTSHCognizant Technology Solutions | 74.2% | +1.18R | 31 |
Our screener re-draws these lines on 500+ stocks every night and flags each chart that fits the checklist above. Here's what its latest scan found.
56 fresh rising wedges formed in the last 45 days across the 500+ stocks we scan (570 charts tracked for this pattern in total). Scan updated Jul 2, 2026.
A real rising wedge from the latest scan — detected 2026-07-02 on BEN. Live chart, live lines.
55 more live rising wedge setups — every chart, breakout level, and target.
First, what the breakdown is FOR. If you own the stock, a rising wedge breaking its lower line is the chart's warning that the run may be rolling over — 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 numbers below read the same either way.
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 wedge's lower line — the one every dip has been landing on — is the trigger. Set the order at that line in advance, so the trade starts the moment the price pushes down through it. If the stock opens the day already below 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: across roughly 54,000 backtested pattern trades, entering at the line won just as often and made about 28% more overall than entering at the breakout day's close.
Right before the breakdown, the price puts in one final small bounce (traders call it the “swing high”). If the price later climbs back above that bounce, the wedge has failed — the trade is over, at a small, known cost. It's a fixed spot you choose BEFORE the trade starts, and every stat on this page is measured against it.
Measure the wedge's height at its widest point — the gap between the two lines where the pattern began — and project that distance DOWN from the spot where the price broke the line. That measured-move target is what our screener draws on the chart, and it's where the trade takes its result. (The let-it-ride treatment we use on upward breakouts didn't test better here — falls tend to find buyers near the target, so we bank it.)
The trade starts the moment price pushes through the line — an order set there in advance gets the first realistic price.
Bearish — usually. It's one of the few patterns where a rising price is a reason for caution, because the climb is visibly decelerating. In our backtest (the live numbers above), rising wedges that broke downward followed through more often than not.
Now the honest part most guides skip: some rising wedges break UP instead. When that happens, don't shrug it off — a pattern that was supposed to roll over and didn't is telling you the buyers are stronger than they looked, and that's a notably bullish turn. Our in-app coach flags those, and the safety exit below is what keeps you out of the argument.
Completed rising-wedge trades from our nightly test — wins and losses, real dates, real results. Each links to that stock's live chart.
Wedges tilt; triangles don't. That one detail changes the lean of each pattern:
The mirror image: both lines slope DOWN but the decline keeps shrinking — a sell-off running out of gas. It leans bullish, breaking up about as reliably as the rising wedge breaks down.
Also points up, but its CEILING is flat — the same price keeps rejecting every push. In a rising wedge both lines rise; the flat ceiling is what makes the triangle its own (bullish-leaning) animal.
A tiny, fast squeeze that only counts right after a steep drop. A rising wedge is bigger, slower, and forms while the price is still climbing.
Educational content, not investment advice. Backtest statistics are historical results of a simulated strategy, refreshed nightly — they describe the past, not the next trade.