Bull Flag and Bear Flag Pattern

How to identify a flag pattern

• Flagpole: a sharp, steep move over a handful of sessions.
• Flag: a tight channel between roughly parallel lines — sloping down in a bull flag, up in a bear flag.
• Short duration: usually days to a few weeks. A consolidation that drags on is no longer a flag.
• Volume typically dries up inside the flag and returns on the breakout.

Is a flag pattern bullish or bearish?

It depends on the flag. A bull flag follows a rally and breaks upward, so it is bullish; a bear flag follows a decline and breaks downward, so it is bearish. Our flag detection covers both, and each recent detection on this page is labelled with its direction.

Price target

Measure the length of the flagpole and project it from the point where price breaks out of the flag.

When the pattern fails

A break in the opposite direction, or a consolidation that retraces most of the pole, means the flag reading no longer holds.

How has this setup performed historically?

Win rate = share of occurrences where the stock beat SPY over the window in the direction the signal predicted — for a bearish setup, a win means it underperformed. Measured since 2025-01-01 on our own detections, which puts the coin-flip line at 50%. Sample sizes are small; treat these as context, not as an edge.

Recent Flag Break detections

From our daily published list over the past 12 months, newest first. Past detections, not recommendations — open a symbol for its chart and current status.

US stocks that have formed the Flag Break most often

Counts are past detections by our scanner, not signals firing today. Follow a symbol through to its own page for the current reading.

Frequently asked questions

What is a bull flag pattern?

A brief, downward-sloping consolidation after a sharp rally. A breakout above the top of the flag is read as the uptrend resuming.

What is the difference between a bull flag and a bear flag?

Direction. A bull flag forms after a rally, slopes down and breaks up; a bear flag forms after a decline, slopes up and breaks down.

Is a flag the same as a pennant?

Close relatives. A flag consolidates in a parallel channel; a pennant in a small converging triangle. Both are continuation patterns measured off the pole.

What is the success rate of a flag pattern?

Across 149 scored detections, the Flag Break moved the way it predicts relative to SPY 50% of the time over the next 20 trading days, with a mean excess return of +1.52%. A coin flip scores about 50%.

Further reading

• Backtest: we tested 1,643 of our own pattern calls against SPY
• Browse every symbol we cover

Other patterns