Head and shoulders
Reversal shape15 completed examples in the record
What the shape is
Three peaks with the middle one highest, joined by a neckline; the most recognisable formation in technical analysis. It was found fifteen times in nine years here, which is far too few to publish a rate from.
What followed it
| Horizon | Examples | Textbook direction | Median change | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 bars | 15 | too few examples | +0.13% | -0.38% … +1.37% |
| 10 bars | 15 | too few examples | -0.33% | -1.10% … +1.40% |
| 20 bars | 15 | too few examples | +1.84% | +0.37% … +3.56% |
| 60 bars | 15 | too few examples | -0.87% | -2.21% … +1.31% |
10 instruments, 1d / 4h, 2017-08-17 to 2026-07-25 — 182,341 bars and 661 completed formations.
engine v1.0.0 · Record generated 2026-07-25
- These figures describe past occurrences of the same shape. They are not a projection of this chart.
- 661 formations is not a large sample, and the instruments are correlated USDT pairs, so the effective sample is smaller still.
- Below 30 examples no rate is printed at all.
- Changes are close-to-close and exclude fees, funding and slippage.
- Medians and quartiles pooled across instruments are sample-weighted approximations, not exact pooled quantiles.
- A formation is timed from the bar its break became observable, and every change is measured strictly after that bar.
- Pooled across every instrument and both backtest timeframes.
The same shape, split by interval
Interval 1d
| Horizon | Examples | Textbook direction | Median change | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 bars | 1 | too few examples | +5.89% | +5.89% … +5.89% |
| 10 bars | 1 | too few examples | +5.13% | +5.13% … +5.13% |
| 20 bars | 1 | too few examples | +24.39% | +24.39% … +24.39% |
| 60 bars | 1 | too few examples | +33.24% | +33.24% … +33.24% |
Interval 4h
| Horizon | Examples | Textbook direction | Median change | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 bars | 14 | too few examples | -0.28% | -0.83% … +1.05% |
| 10 bars | 14 | too few examples | -0.72% | -1.55% … +1.14% |
| 20 bars | 14 | too few examples | +0.23% | -1.35% … +2.07% |
| 60 bars | 14 | too few examples | -3.31% | -4.74% … -0.97% |
The backtest covered the daily and 4-hour intervals only. Only one shape reaches the publication floor on the daily, against eight on the 4-hour — so every pooled rate above is in practice a 4-hour statistic. The console scans five intervals; the three not listed here have no historical record at all.
How it is detected
Formations are matched against swing pivots rather than raw bars, so a single spiky candle cannot create one. A pivot is committed only once price reverses by more than 2.5 times ATR(14), floored at 0.8% of price. A detection is reported only at confidence 0.72 or above — the library default, unmodified.