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As a technician, I talk about following indicators and analyzing charts to guide my trading. One technique I don’t talk about much is following stock market price patterns based on timeframes. And there’s a good reason for that!

If you simply look at price movements over a specific period – let’s say six months – you may think, “Oh, I can predict the next move up or down based on this historical pattern.” But you can’t.

As you know, markets do not always follow the same path. There’s a saying: “History does not repeat but it often rhymes.” Expecting markets to behave the same way as they did last month, last year, or even 10 years ago is foolhardy at best. At worst, it could absolutely lead to a disastrous trading result.

There is a 50/50 chance of patterns repeating themselves every day. That’s not much of an edge! No matter what analysis you use, you need to have a high probability of success. Just thinking, “It happened exactly this way last time so it’ll happen again,” doesn’t cut it.

Case in point: Recent market moves recall patterns from 2007-09. In fact, if you overlay today’s SPX 500 chart over that prior period, the correlation is very strong.

However, market and economic conditions back in 2007-09 during the Global Financial Crisis were vastly different from today. Whatever the markets do during the summer of 2025 will be drastically different from what they did back then.

Plus, no one knows when will the price patterns will diverge on the chart. (If anyone says they know, they are lying!)

Using a pattern of symmetry based on stock market price patterns to predict what will happen next is not reliable analysis. You need to understand what is causing price movements right now. Examine the technical and sentiment indicators. Only then can you build a case for a bullish or bearish approach to trading.

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