Bull Flag vs Pennant in Crypto: Success Rates From 11,674 ChartsNIGHT / TetherUS PERPETUAL CONTRACTBINANCE:NIGHTUSDT.PBitcoinSpikeBull flags and pennants are the two continuation patterns traders name most, and the two most often treated as the same thing. We ran a pattern finder over hot crypto perpetuals from 2019 to today and recorded what happened after each one formed: 11,674 patterns on the daily and 4-hour charts. HOW THE TWO ARE DEFINED Both start with a pole: a fast, strong move up. What follows the pole is the difference. A flag is a channel. Price drifts down or sideways between two parallel lines and gives back only part of the pole, no more than about two-thirds of it. A pennant is a small triangle. The highs fall, the lows rise, and the lines converge. The breakout is a close above the upper line. The textbook target, the measured move, adds the pole's length to the breakout level. WHAT THE DATA SHOWS Bull flag, 1D: 1,858 patterns. Broke up 42.6%, broke down 18.9%. Breakouts that reached target: 33.2%. Median days to target: 11.0. Pennant, 1D: 768 patterns. Broke up 35.0%, broke down 47.1%. Breakouts that reached target: 33.0%. Median days to target: 9.5. Bull flag, 4h: 7,051 patterns. Broke up 41.2%, broke down 17.4%. Breakouts that reached target: 27.8%. Median days to target: 2.3. Pennant, 4h: 1,997 patterns. Broke up 32.1%, broke down 42.9%. Breakouts that reached target: 32.4%. Median days to target: 1.5. The patterns that neither broke up nor down expired inside the window. THREE THINGS TO TAKE FROM IT 1. A flag leans up; a pennant does not. Flags broke up more than twice as often as they broke down. Pennants broke down more often than up on both timeframes. A pennant is a two-sided coil: wait for the side it chooses. 2. The breakout is the start, not the finish. On the daily chart about one breakout in three reached the full measured move; on the 4-hour, between 28% and 32%. Plan exits at levels before the target, not only at it. 3. Time is a signal. On the daily chart, targets that were reached took about 9 to 11 days (median). A breakout that stalls well past that is telling you something. ON THE CHART NIGHT on the daily is forming a bull flag: a pole of more than 100% in five bars, then a falling channel that has given back about 65% of it. It has not broken out. The breakout line sits near 0.0442, about 10% above the price as this is written. By the definition above, a daily close above that line would count as the breakout, and a close below the channel's low would end the pattern. How do you separate a flag from a pennant on your own charts? Share your rules below. #NFA