Seeing that the price is low enough, they take the opportunity to jump in and resume the bearish trend. Sellers who jump in immediately get caught in when the bullish reversal happens. Buyers who had placed the stop loss target of their trade closely below a support level or a moving average, get their stop losses triggered and big players have an open field. So, they’re not good people for normal forex traders like us, since they are our competitors and make life a bit more difficult for us. For a bear trap chart example, consider a scenario where traders were watching a key support level of $425 on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), a US stock market proxy.

• Short sellers are compelled to cover positions as prices rise to minimize losses.
• A closer look at this data can show you whether a bearish breakout will continue.
• Bears may also believe that a financial market’s overall direction may decline.
• The bearish investor or trader expects a break downward through a resistance level to be followed by further downward movement.
• In addition, there is a completed bullish morning star pattern, which included the inverted hammer and hammer patterns.
• In this case, the stock will dip sharply and briefly, and then resume the bullish trend.

This leads to overpricing by buyers who want to attract more sellers as market participants. A bear trap occurs when there is a bearish correction or reversal amid an overall uptrend. A downward correction sees shorting temporarily overcoming buying pressure, leading to a short-term price fall. The decline may be small or large, potentially failing at recent price highs in the uptrend.

Double Top Trading Pattern – What Is It & How Does It Work?

But there are alternatives to short selling, such as put options, or ways to avoid certain situations, such as low trading volume, when bear traps are more likely to occur. After the indicator analysis, we do a study of candlestick patterns. The chart shows that after the downward trend, a bear trap has formed in the form of a pin bar squeeze. In addition, there is a completed bullish morning star pattern, which included the inverted hammer and hammer patterns. Bear traps are price movements that can trick an unwary trader into losing money. They tempt short sellers to bet that the price of a stock will go down, when in reality it is going up.

Divergences are another sign that the price movement may be a bear trap. You can find examples of bear traps in many stocks during overall market uptrends. For instance, in the bear trap image above, ConocoPhillips’ stock price was trending up for several months before it began falling. It dropped rapidly in early October 2022, traded at support for a few days, rebounded to its previous price level, and continued rising.

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Not only should we look for a good trading opportunity, but we should also watch out for trading traps. We should differentiate between trading opportunities and trading traps, such as bear traps. That’s very important though, because there are many trading opportunities which don’t turn out to be as they appeared at first, instead they turn out to be false breakouts. Actually, this aspect of trading might be even more important, because if you don’t lose money then you will end up winning eventually.

It is the opposite process of buying a stock and benefiting as its price rises. As you can see, the stock made a strong bullish gap, tempted some people to buy, and then had a strong reversal. You can understand whether the market is in a bear trap, for example, by analyzing the MACD oscillator. With it, you can accurately determine the entry point to the market using the intersection of moving averages.

Wolfe Waves Pattern – a Way to Peer Into Future

Every trade should have some breathing room because this is not just fixed geometry, but rather a fluid game of cash flow. The bearish candlestick which closes below support is another tricky one for forex traders. After several attempts to break the support at 0.83, all of which are rejected, the break finally comes, or so it seems like. The support comes right at 0.83, which is another big round number and on top of that the candlestick even closes below it. But, the next candlestick takes the price right back up, above the support and then to surge higher for 300 pips, after the 50 SMA turns into support. Sellers who sold right after the candlestick closed got their trades smoked as the bullish reversal came.

Any situation in the market is potentially good if the trader knows how to behave correctly. Lock in profits after the formation of bearish patterns tweezer top and shooting star just below the resistance level. Level 2 data is important for traders because it shows the full range of open orders for a stock, not just the current best bid and ask price. Using Level 2 data, you can identify potential trades before they become apparent on technical charts or get additional… It’s tough to identify a bear trap until after it forms and you see your position moving against you. Hopefully, you have heeded advice to always have a stop loss order before getting into any position.