Jeffrey Kennedy of Elliott Wave International (EWI) has spent years studying old charts as a weekend hobby, and from that research he’s identified three bar patterns that consistently precede sizable moves. They’re simple enough to spot, and they work across timeframes and markets.
The double inside bar pattern
The first pattern is the double inside bar: two consecutive inside bars, where each bar’s range sits entirely within the range of the bar before it. Think of it as the market coiling tighter and tighter, compressing energy before a release. Kennedy’s research across wheat, orange juice, feeder cattle and soybean oil charts shows the same result each time: once that compression resolves, price tends to move hard in one direction. It doesn’t tell you which way — but it tells you something is coming.
The arrow pattern
The arrow is a four-bar variation on the same idea, and Kennedy describes it as a hidden double inside bar. The structure is slightly different — bar two sits inside bars three and four simultaneously, creating a shape that narrows like an arrowhead pointing left. The result is the same: a sharp tradable move follows. A notable example he cites is crude oil, where an arrow formation that included the then all-time high at $58.20 preceded a drop of around $8 shortly after.
The popgun
The most distinctive of the three, the popgun is a two-bar pattern: an inside bar followed immediately by an outside bar. What makes it stand out isn’t just the initial move — it’s what happens next. The sharp move that follows a popgun tends to be significantly retraced, much like a cork firing out of a barrel and snapping back on a string. Kennedy notes that popguns tend to appear just before impulse waves in Elliott wave terms — waves one, three and five — as well as ahead of A and C waves in corrective sequences. He’s also confirmed the pattern holds on 60-minute charts just as well as weekly ones.
Taken together, these three patterns offer a clean, indicator-free way to identify when a market is about to make its next meaningful move. They won’t tell you the direction with certainty — that’s where your broader analysis comes in — but as early warning signals, they’re worth keeping in your toolkit.
