Triple top and triple bottom: how to trade three tests of a level

A triple top is a market that rallies to the same ceiling three times and fails each time. A triple bottom is the reverse: three declines that stop at about the same floor. Both are extended versions of the double top and double bottom, and they tell the same story with one more chapter. A level that turned price back three times has proven itself as resistance or support. When it finally gives way on the other side, the pattern says the trend has changed.

Triple patterns are rarer than doubles and easy to confuse with a sideways range, which is why the confirmation rule matters even more. This guide covers the anatomy, the confirmation level, the target, how triples relate to the head and shoulders and the rectangle, and three real cases on US stocks, including a confirmed triple top that reversed within eight sessions.

Anatomy of a triple top and triple bottom

A triple top has seven pieces:

1. A prior advance, which the pattern may reverse.
2. Peak 1, the first rejection at the level.
3. Valley 1, a meaningful pullback.
4. Peak 2, at about the same price as peak 1.
5. Valley 2, another pullback. It may be higher or lower than valley 1.
6. Peak 3, a third failure at the same level, often on lighter volume.
7. Confirmation, a close below the lower of the two valleys.

Using the lower valley is the conservative choice. It means price has broken through every point of support inside the pattern. Some traders draw a sloping line through the two valleys instead, which gives an earlier signal and more false ones.

A triple bottom mirrors the steps: three troughs at about the same level after a decline, and confirmation when price closes above the higher of the two rally peaks between them.

How it relates to other patterns

A triple top is a head and shoulders in which the head failed to rise above the shoulders. If the middle peak is a little higher, many traders would call the same chart a head and shoulders. And three equal peaks with three equal lows are, in practice, a rectangle: a trading range with flat boundaries. The difference is mostly in the prior trend and the expectation. A triple top is read as a reversal pattern after an advance. A rectangle carries no directional bias of its own.

The overlap matters for one reason. Labels do not change the evidence. Whatever you call it, the information is the same: a level that held several times, and a close that broke the other side of the range.

What the shape tells you

Each failed rally at the same price says sellers are willing to supply shares at that level. The third failure is the most informative: the buyers who stepped in during the second pullback have now also failed. When price then drops through the lowest valley, every buyer in the pattern is losing money, and the level that used to be support may turn into resistance on any rebound. A triple bottom tells the same story in reverse.

Calculating the target

Three real examples

ServiceNow, 2025: a slow triple top. After a 54% recovery from its April 7, 2025 low, NOW topped at $209.20 on May 14, $211.48 on July 3 and $210.20 on July 24 (split-adjusted prices, as Finabase charts show them). The two valleys were $191.37 and $186.83. On August 1 the stock closed at $182.87, below the lower valley. The height of $24.65 projected a target near $162.18. The path was anything but direct: by September 24 the stock had rallied back to $194.73, above the confirmation level but well short of the $211.48 high, so the pattern was still alive under our rules. It reached the target on November 19, 77 sessions after the breakdown.

Alphabet, 2026: confirmed, then reversed in eight sessions. GOOGL peaked at $376.00 on June 16, 2026, $373.16 on July 7 and $375.27 on July 16, with the lower valley at $330.20. On July 23 it gapped down and closed at $317.69, more than 7% below the previous close and well under the confirmation level. The pattern looked decisive. Eight sessions later, on August 4, the stock closed at $377.65, above all three peaks. A trader who shorted the gap with a stop above $376 would have lost about 18%. Gaps through a level can mark capitulation as easily as the start of a trend.

Intel, 2025: a triple bottom. After falling from $26.43 in early November 2024, INTC found a floor three times: $18.90 on December 20, $18.73 on January 13, 2025 and $18.78 on February 3. The higher of the two rally peaks between them was $22.41 (January 21). On February 12 the stock closed at $22.48, just above it. The height of $3.68 gave a target of $26.09, 16% higher. A sharp rally carried the stock to $27.55 by February 18, three sessions later.

How often did it work? A test on 60 large US stocks

We ran the same mechanical test as in our double top and head and shoulders guides, on daily bars from October 30, 2024 to October 29, 2026 for 60 widely held US stocks and ETFs.

The rules. Swings were marked with a 5% ZigZag on daily highs and lows. A triple top needed three swing highs within 3% of one another, spanning 20 to 150 sessions, with the lowest valley at least 8% below the highest peak. Confirmation was the first close below the lowest valley within 60 sessions of the third peak, before price rose more than 1% above the highest peak. A hit meant the target traded before any close above the highest peak (a failure), within 80 sessions. Triple bottoms used the mirror-image rules. The benchmark is the chance a driftless random walk would reach the same target before the same stop.

Three observations:

• The edge over the benchmark was small, 8 points for tops and 4 for bottoms, less than for double tops and bottoms in the same data. With fewer than 40 resolved cases on each side, a difference of a few points is well within what chance can produce.
• Triples were about as common as doubles under our rules. That is partly a feature of the method. A swing detector finds many sets of three similar highs in a long sideways range, and some of those are really rectangles. Hand-picked triple tops, the kind in textbooks, are rarer.
• One in three resolved cases failed, often abruptly, as GOOGL did in 2026.

Trading the pattern: an educational outline

This is how practitioners typically approach a triple top or bottom. It is not a recommendation to trade.

1. Confirm the context. A top needs an advance before it, a bottom a decline. Three equal highs in a flat market are a range, not a reversal.
2. Wait for the close beyond the confirmation level. Anticipating the break means trading a pattern that has not formed.
3. Define the risk. The classical invalidation point is the far side of the pattern: above the highest peak for a top, below the lowest trough for a bottom. That makes the risk roughly equal to the target distance, so the outcome depends on the hit rate. A tighter stop, for example a close back above the confirmation level, improves the reward-to-risk ratio at the cost of more frequent stop-outs.
4. Expect retests. The NOW example rallied back above the confirmation level before resuming its decline. Decide in advance whether a retest is within your plan.
5. Respect gaps and news. A gap through the level on news, as with GOOGL in July 2026, can reverse just as fast.

Triple patterns compared with neighbors

How Finabase helps you find and test the pattern

Finabase does not label triple tops automatically, because deciding when three highs are "equal" is a judgment call. It gives you the tools to apply your own definition:

• ZigZag study. Add the ZigZag at 5% to mark the swing highs and lows our test used, as on this two-year NOW chart. See the ZigZag indicator: filtering swings, and why the last leg repaints guide for how the last leg can change before a swing is confirmed.
• Horizontal lines. On any chart, draw one horizontal line across the peaks and another at the lowest valley. Signed-in users' drawings are saved per symbol, so the levels are there when you come back.
• Volume pane. Volume is shown under price by default. Lighter volume on each successive peak is the classical warning sign.
• Scanner. The Scanner lists stocks making 52-week highs or lows. A stock that keeps returning to the same 52-week high without breaking it is worth watching.

Frequently asked questions

Is a triple top more reliable than a double top?

Not in our sample. Resolved double tops reached their targets 68% of the time and triple tops 64%, both against benchmarks of 56% to 57%. The extra test of the level did not add measurable reliability under our rules.

Which valley do I use if the two valleys differ?

The conservative convention is the lower valley for a triple top and the higher peak for a triple bottom, so that price has cleared every support or resistance inside the pattern. Our test used that rule.

What happens if price breaks above the three peaks instead?

Then the triple top has failed, and a breakout through a level tested three times is often read as bullish. Breakouts and false breakouts are a topic of their own.

How far apart should the peaks be?

On daily charts the peaks are typically spread over one to several months. Our test required the three peaks to span at least 20 and at most 150 sessions.

Summary

A triple top or bottom is three tests of the same price, confirmed when the other side of the range breaks. It shares its logic with the double top and its geometry with the head and shoulders and the rectangle, and the label matters less than the evidence: a level that held, then failed. In our two-year test the pattern reached its target a little more often than a coin flip with the same distances, but failures were frequent and sometimes violent. Wait for the close beyond the confirmation level, size the trade from the far side of the pattern, and let the chart prove the idea instead of assuming it.