A normal trend suddenly steepens into a speculative bump, then breaks its own original trendline and runs the other way — a modern pattern defined by rate of change, not just price levels.
Unlike the century-old classics in this course, this pattern was named and statistically studied by Thomas Bulkowski in his modern chart-pattern research.
Unlike most patterns here, this one is defined by how much the trend's slope accelerates, not just by price touching certain levels.
Because it's built around sudden acceleration driven by speculative excess, this pattern shows up often in bubble-prone assets — tech stocks, crypto, meme-driven names.
Crypto's boom-bust cycles produce textbook lead-in, bump, and run phases with some regularity — one of the more reliable homes for this pattern today.
A normal lead-in trend suddenly steepens into a speculative bump, before the run phase breaks the original lead-in trendline and reverses hard.
Bulkowski's own rule of thumb: the bump's slope should run roughly twice as steep as the lead-in trend — a real acceleration, not just ordinary continued momentum.
Extend the original lead-in trendline forward beneath the bump; a real close back below it confirms the reversal. Measure the bump's height above that line, projected down from the break, for a rough target.
After a year-long lead-in uptrend, price accelerated dramatically into a speculative December bump, before breaking the lead-in trendline and running sharply lower through 2018.
A multi-year lead-in uptrend gave way to a sharply accelerating final stretch into early 2000, before the index broke its own trendline and gave back years of gains.
A stock trends up gently for eight months, then rockets roughly three times steeper for three weeks, then closes back below the extended eight-month trendline. What just happened?
A trend that had been rising at a steady angle for months speeds up only slightly — maybe 20% steeper. A trader calls it a "bump" and shorts immediately. Sound?
Price forms a genuine, measurably steep bump — but keeps rising and never actually closes below the extended lead-in trendline. Should you short anyway, assuming the bump alone is enough?
A lead-in, a speculative bump, and a break — watched tick by tick on the left, and the mark it leaves in the ledger on the right. A confirmed top, a mirrored capitulation bottom — and a false bump that never earned the label.
A lead-in trend, then an acceleration. Judge whether the new slope is genuinely 2×+ steeper — then call it: a real bump, or just ordinary momentum.
The classic error is shorting into a confirmed bump before the reversal actually triggers. The discipline is mechanical: confirm the bump is genuinely 2×+ steeper than the lead-in, then wait for the actual close below the extended lead-in trendline before acting.
A modern pattern for a modern problem — speculative excess accelerates a trend well past its normal pace, and the give-back, once it's confirmed, tends to be just as violent as the run-up.
I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.