How to trade Head & Shoulder Pattern The head and shoulders chart pattern is a popular and easy-to-spot pattern in technical analysis that shows a baseline with three peaks, the middle peak being the highest. The head and shoulders chart depicts a bullish-to-bearish trend reversal and signals that an upward trend is nearing its end.
Formation of the pattern (seen at market tops):
Left shoulder: Price rise followed by a price peak, followed by a decline.
Head: Price rise again forming a higher peak.
Right shoulder: A decline occurs once again, followed by a rise to form the right peak, which is lower than the head.
Formations are rarely perfect, which means there may be some noise between the respective shoulders and head.
Inverse Head and Shoulders
Formation of the pattern (seen at market bottoms):
Left shoulder: Price declines followed by a price bottom, followed by an increase.
Head: Price declines again forming a lower bottom.
Right shoulder: Price increases once again, then declines to form the right bottom.
Placing the Neckline
The neckline is the level of support or resistance that traders use to determine strategic areas to place orders. To place the neckline, the first step is to locate the left shoulder, head, and right shoulder on the chart. In the standard head and shoulders pattern (market top), we connect the low after the left shoulder with the low created after the head. This creates our "neckline"—the white line on this chart.
How to Trade the Pattern
It's important that traders wait for the pattern to complete. This is so because a pattern may not develop at all or a partially developed pattern may not complete in the future. Partial or nearly completed patterns should be watched, but no trades should be made until the pattern breaks the neckline.
In the head and shoulders pattern, we are waiting for price action to move lower than the neckline after the peak of the right shoulder. For the inverse head and shoulders, we wait for price movement above the neckline after the right shoulder is formed.
A trade can be initiated when the pattern completes. Plan the trade beforehand, writing down the entry, stops, and profit targets as well as noting any variables that will change your stop or profit target.
The most common entry point is when a breakout occurs—the neckline is broken and a trade is taken. Another entry point requires more patience and comes with the possibility that the move may be missed altogether. This method involves waiting for a pullback to the neckline after a breakout has already occurred. This is more conservative in that we can see if the pullback stops and the original breakout direction resumes, the trade may be missed if the price keeps moving in the breakout direction.
Why the Head and Shoulders Pattern Works
No pattern is perfect, nor does it work every time. Yet there are several reasons why the chart pattern theoretically works (the market top will be used for this reasoning, but it applies to both)
As price falls from the market high (head), sellers have begun to enter the market and there is less aggressive buying.
As the neckline is approached, many people who bought in the final wave higher or bought on the rally in the right shoulder are now proven wrong and facing large losses—it is this large group that will now exit positions, driving the price toward the profit target.
The stop above the right shoulder is logical because the trend has shifted downwards—the right shoulder is a lower high than the head—and therefore the right shoulder is unlikely to be broken until an uptrend resumes.
The profit target assumes that those who are wrong or purchased the security at a poor time will be forced to exit their positions, thus creating a reversal of similar magnitude to the topping pattern that just occurred.
The neckline is the point at which many traders are experiencing pain and will be forced to exit positions, thus pushing the price toward the price target.
Volume can be watched as well. During inverse head and shoulders patterns (market bottoms), we would ideally like the volume to expand as a breakout occurs. This shows increased buying interest that will move the price towards the target. Decreasing volume shows a lack of interest in the upside move and warrants some skepticism.
Head and shoulders patterns occur on all time frames and can be seen visually. While subjective at times, the complete pattern provides entries, stops, and profit targets, making it easy to implement a trading strategy. The pattern is composed of a left shoulder, a head, then a right shoulder. The most common entry point is a breakout of the neckline, with a stop above (market top) or below (market bottom) the right shoulder. The profit target is the difference of the high and low with the pattern added (market bottom) or subtracted (market top) from the breakout price. The system is not perfect, but it does provide a method of trading the markets based on logical price movements.
