Simple Wedge Trading Strategy for Big Profits

The wedge trading strategy is a reversal trading strategy that has the potential to generate big profits. Wedge trading is one of the most effective methods for identifying breakouts and finding profitable trading opportunities. When it comes to price action trading, the most important thing is recognizing certain patterns in the market.

Like most price patterns, you’ll be able to trade this pattern on any market and on any time frame. No matter what type of trader you are — swing trader, day trader, and scalper — you can make big profits trading the falling wedge pattern.

Regardless of the environment that you see a falling wedge pattern the shape of it and the information that it’s actually offering to you with its price pattern has a very definite bullish bias. Going forward, we’re going to focus on recognizing the falling wedge pattern and the symmetrical wedge pattern, and then we want to focus on how to effectively trade the strategy.

Note* No technical indicators are required to trade the wedge trading strategy. This is because we’re dealing with a pure price action trading strategy.

Before we start covering in-depth the rules of the strategy, we’re going to define and learn how to recognize each one.

Falling Wedge Pattern Explained

It’s important to recognize that the falling wedge pattern, it has two parts in its price pattern structure:

• The primary characteristic of a falling wedge pattern is that we need to have a bearish trend before the pattern develops. This is because it’s a reversal pattern.
• Part two is the actual falling wedge pattern which looks like a triangle that is pointing down.

Now, how to recognize the price structure of a falling wedge pattern?

You need to have a series of lower highs followed by a series of lower lows, the more the better. Each lower point should be lower than the previous lows and each higher point should be lower than the previous high.

However, as we approach the end of the falling wedge pattern you’ll notice the price will fail to make lower lows.

While the falling wedge pattern develops, you’ll notice the length of the swing waves become tighter and tighter. Especially as we move to the downside. And at some point in the future, the two trendlines that connect the highs and the lows will converge.

The falling wedge pattern is not confirmed until it’s breaking to the upside resistance.

We can definitely say there are some characteristics in common between a falling wedge pattern and a bullish flag pattern but the difference is that the flag pattern is more of a short-term aggressive pattern while a wedge pattern is more of a long-term price action. We also have training for the best short-term trading strategy.

Before jumping into the rules of wedge trading strategies, we still need to define our second favorite pattern the symmetrical wedge pattern.

Symmetrical Wedge Pattern Explained

The symmetrical wedge pattern is another simple price action pattern. It is constructed much the same as the falling wedge pattern. The symmetrical wedge pattern has the shape of a symmetrical triangle. It can be recognized by the distinct shape created by two diverging trendlines.

This is identified by drawing two trendlines:

• One downward resistance trendline that connects a series of sequentially lower peaks.
• One upward support trendline that connects a series of sequentially higher lows.

And at some point in the future, the two trendlines that connect the highs and the lows will meet together at the right side of the pattern.

There are many opportunities to trade the symmetrical wedge pattern. This pattern can appear at the end of a bullish trend as well as at the end of a bearish trend. More than simply being a reversal pattern, this can also be traded as a continuation pattern.

Often times, a breakout of either of the two trendlines will lead to a volatile directional move.

Now, let’s see how you can effectively trade the falling wedge pattern and the symmetrical wedge pattern. Simply follow the wedge trading strategy rules below.

Wedge Trading Strategy Rule — Buying Opportunities

As a general rule, we have to keep in mind that, the longer the market consolidates between the upper and lower limits of the falling wedge pattern and the symmetrical wedge pattern, the higher the odds of a breakout happening sooner rather than later.

First, we’re going to focus on the falling wedge pattern because it has the potential of outstanding profits to be made.

Step #1: Wait until you can Spot on the Price Chart the Structure of a Falling Wedge Pattern and Draw the two trendline that connects the highs and the lows.

We’re just looking for that visual representation of a falling wedge pattern. So, the more compressed the pattern is the better. Eventually, we’ll break to the upside. The volatility behind the breakout will push the price higher very fast.

Note** Often times you’ll find that the shape and the price structure of a falling wedge pattern can vary from pattern to pattern. Ideally, as long as we follow the definition given earlier, we’re good to trade any falling wedge pattern that respects those rules

Next, we need to figure out where we need to get into the trade, which brings us to the next step:

Step #2: Buy when we break and Close above the Downward Resistance Trendline

It’s important before the breakout to see the price contracting within the two trendlines. So when the price hits the resistance trendline the sellers will step in and when the price hits the support trendline the buyers will step in.

Ultimately, we’re getting the price squeezed inside this range-bound action.

As we get tighter and tighter that’s what we’re focused on as the buildup in pressure will eventually lead to a breakout. In order to avoid possible false breakouts, we’re also going to wait for a close above the upper slope before we actually buy.

Now that we’re in a trade we need to find our target, which brings us to the next step.

Step #3: Take profit once we Break Above of the Origins (Starting Point) of the Falling Wedge Pattern

The starting point of the falling wedge pattern is our first wall of resistance and obviously, we want to cash our profits at the first trouble area. This is a more conservative target.

Alternatively, you can trail your stop loss below each swing low and try to catch as much as possible from the new trend.

Now that we have a good understanding of where to take profits, there is still one more thing left that we need to take care of, which is the Stop Loss placement.

Step #4: Place the Protective SL below the last swing low before the Breakout

The place we’re going to hide our stop loss is quite intuitive to figure out. The last swing low before the breakout can provide us with a very attractive low risk in comparison with the potential profit available.

A break below the last swing low will invalidate the falling wedge price structure so we want to minimize our losses and get out of the trade.

Note* The above was an example of a buy trade… For a sell trade, we need to trade the “cousin” pattern which is the rising wedge pattern. Use the same rules — but in reverse — for a sell trade.

Summary

The reason why we’ve chosen to use the falling wedge pattern and the symmetrical wedge pattern because people won’t realize what is developing until after the breakout, but if you train your eyes to spot these price patterns in advance big profits are waiting for you down the line. You can also trade with the breakout triangle strategy.

The psychology behind the falling wedge pattern is that as the price action narrows down the buyers become more aggressive while the sellers don’t have enough power to continue pressing down the paddle.

If you compress an object hard enough after it reaches a maximum level of compression it will snap back hard. The same principle can be applied to the falling wedge pattern which is the reason why it has such a tremendous potential to make substantial profits.