Lumen Futures Blog
Technical Analysis Patterns
Chart patterns and indicators: who defined each one, how it is calculated, and what the research says about it.
Technical Analysis PatternsOctober 28, 2026What Is the Parabolic SAR Indicator, and How Is It Calculated?
The parabolic SAR is a stop level that creeps toward the best price a position has seen, by a fraction that grows each time a new extreme is set, and flips to the other side of price when it is reached.
- Technical Analysis PatternsOctober 25, 2026
What Is the ADX Indicator, and What Does It Actually Measure?
The ADX smooths the gap between two directional indicators into one line, so it reports how one-sided recent movement has been and carries no direction of its own.
- Technical Analysis PatternsOctober 19, 2026
What Is the RSI Indicator, and What Is It Actually Counting?
The RSI divides the average size of a market's up closes by the average size of its down closes and rescales that ratio onto a line from 0 to 100.
- Technical Analysis PatternsOctober 10, 2026
Do Candlestick Patterns Work? What Two Studies Found
Two studies read for this post ran candlestick rules against a bootstrap significance test: on Dow component stocks nothing came back significant, and on three CME currency futures contracts only a handful of forms did.
- Technical Analysis PatternsSeptember 30, 2026
What Is a Triangle Chart Pattern, and What Did Testing Find?
A triangle is a run of swing highs and swing lows that squeeze toward each other. One study of US stocks defined it tightly enough to count, and found a random walk produced almost as many as real prices did.
- Technical Analysis PatternsSeptember 21, 2026
What Is VWAP in Futures Trading?
VWAP is the average traded price over a period, weighted by the volume that traded at each price — a line whose value depends heavily on where you told it to start, and a benchmark that was built to measure execution rather than to forecast anything.
- Technical Analysis PatternsSeptember 17, 2026
What Is a Double Top or Double Bottom Pattern?
A double top is two price peaks that stall at roughly the same level; a double bottom is the same shape inverted. Here is how one study of US stocks defined them precisely enough to count, how many it found, and what its tests did and did not show.
- Technical Analysis PatternsSeptember 11, 2026
The Head and Shoulders Pattern: What It Is and What Testing Found
A head and shoulders is three peaks with the middle one highest, read as a trend reversal once price crosses the neckline, and in the published test on US equities positions taken that way lost money on average.