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What Is a Rounding Pattern

A rounding pattern is a turn spread over weeks: a rise that slows, flattens and becomes a fall — a rounding top — or the same upside down, a rounding bottom. This paper shows you a real rounding top drawn from the Dow's daily closes in early 2025, the dome and the saucer, the top on the daily chart and a rounding bottom on gold, and the line chart on your platform where the arc is easiest to see.

Difficulty
Intermediate
Reading time
5 min
Pages
8
Reviewed by
Saman Rahbar

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A dome

A rounding top is a rise that slows, turns over and becomes a fall, with no sharp corner. The Dow rose from 41,639 on 13 January 2025 to 45,012 on 31 January, spent February crowding near the top, and fell back to 41,618 by 10 March, ending where it began. Drawn as daily closes, the eight weeks trace an arc: up one side of a dome and down the other. No single day is the top; the turn is spread across the whole of February.

A dome and a saucer

There are two rounding shapes. A rounding top is a dome: the rise flattens and becomes a fall. A rounding bottom is a saucer: the fall flattens and becomes a rise. Neither has a corner, a neckline or a handle — which is what sets them apart from the other shapes on this shelf. The turn happens gradually, over many candles, so the shape is read from the curve of the whole stretch rather than from any one day in it.

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