What qualifies
- Three peaks: three consecutive swing highs (4 days on each side) in the last 150 days: left shoulder, head, right shoulder.
- Head: at least 3% (or 1× the 14-day ATR) above both shoulders. Shoulders: within 4% (or 1× ATR) of each other, and the two halves of the pattern are no more than twice as long as each other.
- Neckline: the line through the lowest low between the left shoulder and the head, and the lowest low between the head and the right shoulder. Both shoulders sit above it.
- Context: price rose into the pattern from below the neckline (in the 40 days before the left shoulder). The right shoulder is in the last 30 days and price is still below the head.
- Status: Neckline broken once the latest close is below the neckline. Inverse: the mirror image, with swing lows and a breakout above the neckline.
Head and shoulders in practice
The head and shoulders is a classic reversal pattern: buyers push to a new high (the head) but fail to repeat it (the right shoulder). A close through the neckline completes it, and a common target is the head’s distance from the neckline, projected from the break. The inverse pattern is the bullish version at a low.
Patterns are found mechanically on daily candles from the data provider. Not investment advice.
Frequently asked questions
What does the quality score mean?
It’s a 0–100 score of how cleanly the pattern fits the rules above (for example, how tight the flag is, how round the cup is, or how closely the two lows match). It isn’t a probability and says nothing about what price does next. Use it to sort the list, then look at the chart: click a symbol to open it on FreeCharting.
Are these patterns reliable?
Chart patterns are a way to describe price action, not a prediction. Many fail, and they work differently in different markets. The detection is mechanical: a pattern can qualify on the numbers and still look wrong to your eye, and a pattern you’d draw by hand may miss one rule. Nothing here is investment advice.
Which markets can it scan?
Four, picked with the Market buttons above the table. Crypto (the default) scans the 250 busiest USDT pairs on Binance. Crypto perps scans the 200 busiest USDT perpetual futures on OKX. Both are free public data and need no key. US stocks scans about 600 US stocks and ETFs with your own free Alpaca key, and CME futures scans about 25 front-month CME Group contracts (stock indexes, Treasuries, oil, gas, metals, grains, livestock, currencies and CME bitcoin) with your own free Massive key.
Why do stocks and futures need a key?
Stock and futures prices are licensed data, so a website can’t hand them out for free. Alpaca (for stocks) and Massive (for futures) give anyone a free data key. Your key is saved only in your browser and sent only to that provider. See how to get a free Alpaca key and how to get a free Massive key for futures.
Is the data real-time?
Crypto and crypto perps are live from Binance and OKX, on daily candles that start at 00:00 UTC (today’s candle is still forming). Alpaca’s free stock data is 15 minutes behind the market, and Massive’s free futures plan is 8 hours delayed. Turn on auto-refresh next to the results to update the table in place every 30 seconds, minute or 5 minutes.