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When you look at a price chart, you are looking at a record of decisions. Buyers and sellers push price up and down, and over time those movements form shapes. Two of the most useful categories of these shapes are continuation patterns and reversal patterns. Understanding what each one signals, and how to tell them apart, is a practical skill that helps you decide whether to stay in a trade or prepare for a change in direction.

What Is a Continuation Pattern?
A continuation pattern forms when price pauses mid-trend before moving in the same direction it was already going. Think of it as a brief rest. The market has been rising or falling, momentum slows temporarily, consolidation happens, and then price picks up where it left off.
Common continuation patterns include:
• Flags – a short, tight consolidation that slopes against the trend. After a sharp move up, price drifts slightly down in a narrow channel, then breaks upward again.
• Pennants – similar to flags but the consolidation forms a small symmetrical triangle instead of a rectangle.
• Ascending and descending triangles – price compresses between a flat level and a rising or falling line. The breakout usually follows the direction of the existing trend.
• Rectangles (trading ranges) – price bounces between two horizontal levels. When it finally breaks out, it often continues in the direction of the prior trend.
The key feature of a continuation pattern is that the trend before the pattern and the breakout after it point in the same direction.
What Is a Reversal Pattern?
A reversal pattern signals that the current trend may be ending and price could start moving the other way. These patterns take longer to form because a trend does not turn around overnight. Buyers and sellers go back and forth before one side loses control.
Common reversal patterns include:
• Head and shoulders – three peaks, with the middle one the highest. When price breaks below the line connecting the two low points (the neckline), it suggests the uptrend is over.
•Inverse head and shoulders – the same pattern flipped upside down, appearing after a downtrend and signalling a possible move upward.
•Double top – price reaches the same high twice, fails to break through, and then drops. A sign that buyers are running out of strength.
•Double bottom – price hits the same low twice without breaking lower, then rises. Often marks the end of a downtrend.
•Rounding top and rounding bottom – gradual, curved turns in price direction. Less sharp than double tops or head and shoulders, but can be just as significant.
How to Tell Them Apart
The pattern itself does not tell you everything. Context does. Here are the questions that help you categorise what you are looking at:

1. What was price doing before the pattern formed?
A flag or pennant only makes sense as a continuation pattern if there was a clear trend before it. No trend beforehand means the pattern loses its meaning. Similarly, a double top only signals a reversal if price was actually rising before it hit those two peaks.
2. Where does the breakout go?
Wait for confirmation. A pattern is only confirmed when price actually breaks out and holds. A flag that breaks downward during an uptrend is not behaving as expected, which tells you something has changed. A head and shoulders that breaks downward confirms the reversal. Without a clear breakout, the pattern is just a shape.
3. Is volume supporting the move?
Volume is useful here. Continuation patterns often show lower volume during the consolidation phase, then higher volume on the breakout. Reversal patterns sometimes show volume picking up as the new direction establishes itself. Volume alone is not conclusive, but it adds weight to what the pattern is suggesting.

A Note on False Signals
Neither pattern type is always right. A continuation pattern can fail and price can reverse. A reversal pattern can resolve in the original direction. This is why most traders use patterns alongside other tools, such as support and resistance levels, moving averages, or momentum indicators, rather than acting on the pattern alone.
The point of learning these patterns is not to find a perfect signal. It is to understand what price behaviour looks like when a trend is likely to continue versus when it is likely to change, so your decisions are based on structure rather than guesswork.
The Short Version
Continuation patterns say: the trend is pausing, not ending. Watch for the breakout in the same direction.
Reversal patterns say: the trend may be losing steam. Watch for the breakout in the opposite direction.
Both take practice to recognise. The more charts you study, the faster you will start seeing these structures before the breakout happens, rather than after.