Measured Moves and Targets
Every named pattern comes with a convention for projecting a target. All of them do the same thing: scale the expected move to the size of the structure.
MadStockAlerts Research · Updated August 28, 2026
What to take away
- Measured moves project the height of a structure from its break point.
- The convention scales the target to the size of the change being described.
- It is a rule of thumb with no mechanism behind it.
- Testing finds targets reached inconsistently.
- Its useful function is sizing an expectation, not forecasting a price.
MAD Academy Training Video · 0:45
Where the Target Number Comes From
Measured moves are a planning convention, not a prediction — and their real job is telling you when not to take the trade.
This lesson is part of a Stock Alerts + Tools plan.
The convention, across patterns
| Structure | The projection |
|---|---|
| Head and shoulders | Head to neckline, projected down from the break |
| Rectangle | The range height, projected from the break |
| Triangle | The height at the widest point, projected from the break |
| Flag | The pole's length, projected from the breakout |
| Double bottom | Low to the intervening high, projected up from the break |
Every row is the same idea: take the size of the structure and add it to the point at which the structure resolved. The differences between them are which two points define the height.
What is defensible about it
The defensible part is the scaling. A structure whose height is forty percent of the security's price describes a much larger change in its situation than one whose height is four percent, and any target that ignored the difference would be worse than one that did not.
Read as a scale rather than a forecast, the convention answers a real question: how large a move would be consistent with the size of what just happened. That is a different and more modest claim than saying where the price will go.
What is not
- There is no mechanism connecting the height of a structure to the distance of a subsequent move.
- Testing finds targets reached inconsistently, and the results depend heavily on the time limit imposed.
- Without a time limit, most targets are eventually reached, which is a statement about prices moving.
- The projection is computed from a structure whose boundaries were frequently drawn.
The third item is the one that makes published hit rates for measured moves difficult to interpret. A target reached after two years is not the outcome the convention was describing.
A more honest use
Expressing the projection in the security's own average range makes it comparable and gives it a time dimension. A target eight average daily ranges away is a different proposition from one two ranges away, and the difference is not visible in a price.
Scroll the chart sideways to see all of it.
Time, and the missing dimension
A measured move states a distance and says nothing about when. That omission is what makes published statistics about target achievement so difficult to interpret.
| Horizon imposed | Share of targets typically reached |
|---|---|
| Within the time the structure took to form | A minority |
| Within a year | Considerably more |
| No limit at all | Most, which is close to a statement that prices move |
Any hit rate quoted for a measured move without a stated horizon is uninterpretable, and the horizon is frequently unstated. The third row is the version most often reported.
Attaching a time expectation makes the convention testable. A structure that took six weeks to form, projecting a target that has not been reached in six months, is a structure whose measured move did not occur, and without a horizon there is no moment at which that can be said.