Ascending Triangle: Pressure Against the Ceiling

The shape

Highs keep stopping at one flat level while every dip bottoms *higher* than the last. Price coils into the corner between a horizontal ceiling and a rising floor.

Why it works

The flat top is a seller (or a crowd of sellers) defending one price. The rising lows are buyers getting less and less patient — willing to pay more after every rejection. One side is finite; the other is compounding. When the ceiling's supply runs out, the snap is often violent because there's nothing above it.

Our scanner's rules

• At least three touches near the same resistance (within ~2%).
• Clearly rising swing lows into it.
• Entry: the breakout through the flat line. Stop: below the most recent rising low. Target: the triangle's height (widest part) added to the breakout level.
• Breakout volume above 1.3× average boosts confidence.

Common mistakes

• Buying inside the triangle to "get a better price" — a third of triangles resolve the other way; the pattern isn't real until the line breaks.
• Trading triangles on illiquid stocks where one order paints the picture — check the 30-day average volume on the stock page first.
• Forgetting the retest: breakouts often return to kiss the old ceiling (now support). That's normal, not failure — failure is closing back *below* it.

Live matches: Strategies page, Ascending Triangle card.