A double top's rarer, more deliberate cousin: three attempts at the same ceiling, all rejected, each pullback real and meaningful. The extra attempt is extra conviction.
Early chartists recognized that some ceilings get tested a third time before the market gives up — the same logic as a double top, extended by one more attempt.
The landmark technical analysis text notes triple tops and bottoms as less common than double tops, but no less valid once confirmed.
Where head and shoulders has a distinctly higher middle peak, this pattern's three peaks are all roughly equal — a flatter ceiling, tested three times.
Because it needs one more genuine test to form, traders today treat a confirmed triple top or bottom as carrying somewhat more weight than a double.
After an uptrend, three separate rallies all fail at nearly the same ceiling, each separated by a real pullback. At a bottom, the identical shape inverted is a triple bottom.
Connect the two troughs between the three peaks — that shared support line is what must break. At a bottom, the shared resistance line between the three troughs must break upward.
Each additional rejection at the same level is more evidence sellers are defending it consistently, not by chance. But three genuine, well-spaced attempts are rarer than two — most levels only get tested once or twice before resolving.
Some technical commentary describes the choppy 2017–2018 top as resembling a triple-top-like structure before the broader decline — a debated but illustrative real-world example.
Because genuine triple tops and bottoms are rarer and more debated than their two-swing cousins, this lesson leans mostly on the schematic to teach the rule rather than forcing a specific chart to fit it.
Three peaks form at nearly the same price, each separated by a real pullback, then price closes below the shared support line. What is this?
Three peaks print near the same price, but the middle one is noticeably higher than the other two. Is this a triple top?
A double top forms, and after its confirmed break, a minor bounce stalls slightly below the old ceiling. A trader calls this "the third peak of a triple top." Is that correct?
Three swings, watched as they build on the left — and the mark they leave in the ledger on the right. A confirmed triple top, a confirmed triple bottom — and a shape that was really just head and shoulders.
Three swings at one level. Judge the symmetry and whether the shared line broke — then call it: trade the break, pass, or note it's really head and shoulders.
The classic error is upgrading a confirmed double top into a "triple" using a minor, unconvincing bounce. The discipline is mechanical: demand the third peak be genuinely comparable in size and timing to the first two, and occurring before, not after, any confirming break.
A double failed level is a strong claim. A triple, genuinely earned, is a rarer and stronger one still — demand real symmetry, real pullbacks, and a real break before trusting it.
Three strikes and you're out.