Trading Stocks and Cryptocurrencies: How popular chart patterns become self-fulfilling prophecies

Hello Steemit community!

Like many other traders, I know of chart patterns and recognize them when I see them. There are a lot of them, but here is a list of the ones I believe every trader should know.

Reversal Patterns

 Double Top Reversal
 Double Bottom Reversal
 Head and Shoulders Top
 Head and Shoulders Bottom
 Falling Wedge
 Rising Wedge
 Rounding Bottom
 Triple Top Reversal
 Triple Bottom Reversal
 Bump and Run Reversal

Continuation Patterns

 Flag, Pennant
 Symmetrical Triangle
 Ascending Triangle
 Descending Triangle
 Rectangle
 Price Channel
 Measured Move - Bullish
 Measured Move - Bearish
 Cup with Handle

TIP: My desktop background is a matrix of candlestick patterns with their names and an example of how they look. Also, I believe that all traders should have printed copies of patterns hung around their desk in an organized fashion from bearish signal to bullish signal, from trend continuation to trend reversal. Like this, by glancing up, you can instantly recognize if the pattern you are seeing is accurate or not. Also, by having them available for the viewing at all times, the patterns will slowly get ingrained in your head to the point that you no longer require having them hung there.

The reason that I am making this post though, is to discuss a thought of mine.

Do popular bullish/bearish patterns become self-fulfilling prophecies? I think so.

I believe that the patterns which are most known to traders such as cup-and-handle (bullish) or head-and-shoulders (bearish) are so well known to the average trader that they become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Since so many people recognize these patterns, they act according to how those patterns should behave. By doing so, they create momentum into the direction they believe will happen and therefore the predicted price change does actually occur.

For example, if I see a cup-and-handle, I will long the coin, not short it. Therefore, if many people do this, the price increases as the pattern suggests it should. However, let us assume a cup-and-handle formation was a bearish signal and not a bullish signal. Would that mean that trader’s perspective on the formation would make them want to short it since it would be considered a great position to open a short from? I think it would. This means the cup-and-handle would become a sell signal that people would act upon and it would therefore drive the price down, becoming again a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, if there was no list of patterns with their meanings, would they eventually receive the meaning they were originally given? I think so, but who knows!?

I would be interested in hearing people’s thoughts on this.

Also, I believe this phenomenon is truer for cryptocurrencies than for stock markets since the vast majority of people are traders and not long term investors.

Yours truly,
Lucas Hohl-Marchetta.