Tops and Bottoms

Tops refer to a stock price which is higher than nearby stock prices.  Bottoms refer to prices which are lower than nearby prices.  An ideal strategy is to repeatedly buy the bottoms and sell the tops.

Tops and bottoms are slightly different from highs and lows.  When you talk about highs and lows, you typically decide on a fixed timescale in advance.  For example, if you are looking at a chart where each candle represents one day, the very top of each candle is the high for the day, and the bottom of each candle is the low for the day.  Tops and bottoms, on the other hand, can come at any time.  Look at a chart, and look for any price that's higher than the ones near it, and that's a top.

There are many chart patterns which are typically interpreted as signals that the stock has hit a top or a bottom.  Trade-Ideas searches for the more common examples, listed below, and reports and alert each time it sees one.

Tops and bottoms are notoriously hard to predict in advance.  That's why these patterns typically take the most time to verify.  A book describing these patterns will typically show the pattern in the middle of the chart, long after the stock has moved in the expected direction.  Trade-Ideas attempts to recognize and confirm these as soon as possible, but these are some of the slowest alerts that we report.

In addition to reporting tops and bottoms directly, we sometimes use these internally.  Fibonacci retracement alerts, for example, are based on tops and bottoms.  The actual formula for a Fibonacci Retracement is trivial, with one catch.  You have to start with the price of the most recent top and bottom before you can apply the formula.  Trade-Ideas automatically finds the tops and bottoms for you.  We can report these alerts much more quickly, as the alert happens after we've had time to identify the tops and the bottoms.

Alert Types

We offer the following alert types which are related to this topic.  Click on the icon for a detailed description of the alert, or click on the "more" link for additional examples of each type of alert.

Type	Recent Examples			More Examples
	Time (NY)	Symbol	Message
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:29 PM	SCG	Broadening bottom. Prices: 35.79, 35.85, 35.72, 35.87, 35.71. Started 1 hour 54 minutes ago. Last turn 27 minutes 37 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:36 PM	OEF	Broadening top. Prices: 59.42, 59.32, 59.51, 59.30, 59.60. Started 2 hours 37 minutes ago. Last turn 36 minutes 40 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:39 PM	PX	Triangle bottom. Prices: 94.96, 95.93, 95.65, 95.90, 95.74. Started 2 hours 10 minutes ago. Last turn 7 minutes 48 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:25 PM	VISN	Triangle top. Prices: 17.73, 17.08, 17.23, 17.12, 17.18. Started 1 hour 33 minutes ago. Last turn 1 minute 44 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:25 PM	AMCN	Rectangle bottom. Prices: 13.98, 14.02, 13.97, 14.03, 13.98. Started 1 hour 42 minutes ago. Last turn 18 minutes 55 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:22 PM	ANAD	Rectangle top. Prices: 6.17, 6.08, 6.18, 6.10, 6.15. Started 73 minutes 43 seconds ago. Last turn 2 minutes 9 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:03 PM	NTES	5 bottom. Prices: 22.576, 22.65, 22.65, 22.61, 22.62. Started 24 hours 30 minutes ago. Last turn 8 minutes 33 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:36 PM	PIF.UN.CAT	Triple top. Prices: 16.822, 16.80, 16.80. Started 1 day 3 hours ago. Last turn 22 minutes 4 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:17:47 PM	DPZ	Inverted head and shoulders. Prices: 13.40, 13.44, 13.28, 13.44, 13.41. Started 1 hour 50 minutes ago. Last turn 7 minutes 35 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:16:06 PM	MEE	Head and shoulders. Prices: 66.63, 65.86, 69.59, 66.23, 66.45. Started 4 hours 17 minutes ago. Last turn 14 minutes 25 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:42 PM	SPNG	Fibonacci buy signal. Retraced 38.1966% from resistance (0.045) back to support (0.038). Started 5 hours 42 minutes ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:45 PM	ABPI	Fibonacci sell signal. Retraced 38.1966% from support (0.9621) back to resistance (1.00). Started 5 hours 49 minutes ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:43 PM	ENZN	Fibonacci buy signal. Retraced 50% from resistance (8.00) back to support (7.471). Started 2 days 1 hour ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:42 PM	AAWW	Fibonacci sell signal. Retraced 50% from support (49.40) back to resistance (50.60). Started 5 hours 34 minutes ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:42 PM	TDC	Fibonacci buy signal. Retraced 61.8034% from resistance (22.82) back to support (22.35). Started 5 hours 5 minutes ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:44 PM	VNDA	Fibonacci sell signal. Retraced 61.8034% from support (3.72) back to resistance (3.80). Started 9 minutes 1 second ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:40 PM	LSE	Fibonacci buy signal. Retraced 78.6151% from resistance (8.00) back to support (7.95). Started 79 minutes 34 seconds ago.	more
	Jul 23rd, 3:18:44 PM	SYNT	Fibonacci sell signal. Retraced 78.6151% from support (31.89) back to resistance (32.752). Started 2 days 5 hours ago.	more

See Also