An Explanation of the Symmetrical Triangles and Price Targets

May 31, 2021

GME is currently in a pattern known as a symmetrical triangle in which, following a move (up or down), there is a battle between bears and bulls to establish dominance on the market. We'll focus on a symmetrical triangle that starts with a move up like GME, but the same applies to a move down, just vice versa. This is visualized on a chart as a move up followed by a series of lower highs and higher lows which form two converging trend lines that form a triangle shape. As far as market psychology goes, this represents a few things. You should know, three parties are usually considered in market psychology analysis of individual securities, but four parties are considered when there is an influx of people who were not previously involved in that market. I think in GME's case we can say that there are four parties. Those parties can be identified as bulls, bears, undecided, and uninterested. The uninterested party becomes interested, and therefore accounted for in analysis, when there is a lot of attention surrounding a security. The move starts with a lot of volume (which is relative, but mostly can be based on the average volume over a long period) as a result of a shift or reversal in sentiment and newfound attention on that security. The bullish party increases their position as their bullish thesis is proven correct. The bearish party closes their positions (and may even reverse their position to bullish) once their bearish thesis has been proven wrong. The undecided party becomes decidedly bullish. And finally, the uninterested party becomes interested and bullish.

Following the move up, buyers and sellers are going back and forth increasing and decreasing their entry and exit points which creates a series of peaks and troughs. At the first peak, where the triangle starts, there has been bullish sentiment because bears realized they were wrong and the stock is getting attention because of the price increase, so all parties have turned bullish. GME is a tricky case because there probably would have been continued bullish sentiment if there wasn't interference with the market, but even though the price action has been interfered with, the chart still paints a picture of market psychology for us - whether it's unprecedented or not. At some point, the stock will hit the bulls price target and they will start selling their shares for profit (and possibly reversing their position to bearish, but this is less likely in a market that's trending up). At this point, bears take over and start shorting again, bulls become dormant until they see another price they like, undecided parties may stay undecided or move with the trend, and uninterested parties are again no longer interested or are also moving with the trend. This process continues in a series of a total of 5 peaks and troughs (combined) to form a wave (this ties into Elliot Wave principles, but I'm not well versed in that yet). Each peak will be lower and each trough will be higher as buyers and sellers compete for dominance. In other words, moves up should have decidedly more volume than moves down in a symmetrical triangle, because all parties have turned bullish where the opposite is not true for moves down. The overall volume from the beginning to the end of the triangle should also decrease. Symmetrical triangles are intermediate patterns which means they typically last 1 to 3 months. In the event that the patterns continues past 3 months, if the volume profile is still indicative of a continuation, the breakout will likely be more significant.

During this 1-3 month period, the breakout generally occurs between 2/3 and 3/4 of the overall length of the triangle starting from its beginning (the base) to the point where the trend lines converge (the apex). If there is no breakout by the time that 3/4 of the triangle has passed, the continuation pattern weakens and it becomes more likely that the sideways trading will continue. If there is a break out, it's generally on higher volume than the past 10 days and in what's known as a gap up, or an opening price one day that is much higher than the previous days closing price. There are a few types of gap ups, but we'll focus on breakaway gaps because that's what we're dealing with in this instance. A breakaway gap typically occurs when breaking through or out of a prominent support, resistance, or pattern. The breakaway gap indicates the start of a strong trending move, is typically a large gap, and the price tends to follow through in the gap direction over the next few weeks. In order to confirm a gap up, you want to see increased volume and you absolutely do not want to see that gap filled in the following days. We just had a gap up to break out of the symmetrical triangle in GME and we partially filled it, but have not filled it all the way. If the gap is filled it usually indicates prices will go lower. Now that we've broken out of the triangle, the upper resistance line will likely become a prominent support line. So if the breakaway gap is filled we can expect a bounce somewhere around $195. If it's not filled, we can expect to continue moving higher to the price targets set by the symmetrical triangle. There are a few way to set price targets, but two methods are most common. The first is to measure the height of the base of the triangle. Use that same height going up from the breakout point to determine a price target to be met by the apex of the triangle. The second method is to draw a line parallel to the triangle's support line. Your price target will be where that line ends at the apex of the triangle.

The end of the symmetrical triangle is on 11 June and my two price targets are $588.87 and $634.24. I'll post the chart now so you can see that this is a nearly perfect symmetrical triangle continuation pattern that follows every single one of those parameters that I just explained. This is a very high accuracy pattern.

Jun 22, 2021

Comment

The information regarding the symmetrical triangle is still valid. This was more meant to be an informative post, but the symmetrical triangle is still forming. You can look at my most recent idea for the updated chart.