Each swing wider than the last, with no narrowing back — a genuine sign of growing disagreement, not a clean setup with a tidy resolution.
Chartists called this the "megaphone" pattern — two diverging trendlines that spread apart rather than converge.
The landmark text explicitly warns this is one of the least reliable, hardest-to-trade formations — no measured move, no clean breakout logic.
Rather than a clean setup, this shape reflects rising disagreement among participants — often near tops, in emotional, headline-driven markets.
Most traders today treat this shape as a cue to reduce size and widen stops, rather than a pattern to trade directly.
Price makes a series of swing highs and lows, each pair wider than the previous pair, tracing two diverging trendlines that never converge back.
Unlike a triangle or flag, this shape doesn't point toward a resolution — it reflects genuinely rising disagreement and instability, often near emotional market tops.
The sane response is defensive: reduce position size, widen stops, and expect messier, larger swings — rather than trying to trade the shape itself for profit.
Approaching the cycle top, price showed genuinely widening, more violent swings in both directions — a real megaphone shape reflecting rising disagreement before the eventual decline.
Around the 2000 top, technicians have pointed to increasingly wide, volatile swings with no clean resolution — exactly the kind of instability this pattern describes.
Price makes four consecutive swings, each higher-high and lower-low than the last, with no sign of narrowing. What is the sound reaction?
A trader wants to measure the "target" of a broadening formation the same way they would a triangle or flag. Does that work?
Price makes just two ordinary swings, roughly the same size as recent ones, and a trader excitedly calls it a broadening formation. Is that a fair label?
Widening swings, watched tick by tick on the left — and the mark it leaves in the ledger on the right. A confirmed, sustained megaphone at a top — and two ordinary swings that never earned the name.
A sequence of swings appears. Judge whether they genuinely widen — then call it: a real broadening formation, or just ordinary noise.
The classic error is treating this like every other pattern — hunting for a clean entry and measured-move target. The discipline is mechanical: recognize genuine, sustained widening as a warning, then reduce size and widen stops rather than chasing a new trade inside it.
The megaphone teaches a different kind of lesson than most patterns here — not every shape is meant to be traded for profit. Some are meant to be respected, sized around, and survived.
The center cannot hold.