FTB-C000684 / Formula component

Head-and-Shoulders Pivot Sequence

Head-and-Shoulders Pivot Sequence is the ordered high-low-high-low-high sequence used by the head-and-shoulders detector.

Intermediate 1 linked topicEvidence-reviewed

Definitions

In plain terms

The middle high is the head and the outer highs are the shoulders.

Technical

The detector requires five contiguous strict causal pivots with minimum spacing and the specified polarity.

Scope

A five-pivot sequence without head dominance is not automatically head and shoulders.

Examples

  • A reviewer computes Head-and-Shoulders Pivot Sequence on a deterministic close fixture and checks pivot timing, threshold equality, neckline behavior, and rejection diagnostics before publication.

Common misconceptions

  • A five-pivot sequence without head dominance is not automatically head and shoulders.

Concept relationships

Prerequisites

Related

Required by

Where this concept is used

Evidence and governance

  1. scipy.signal.find_peaks SciPy · first party technical publication

    Supports: preferred label, short definition, technical definition, variant distinction

    Limits: This retrospective signal function is not itself a causal OHLC pivot detector.

  2. Foundations of Technical Analysis: Computational Algorithms, Statistical Inference, and Empirical Implementation Lo, Mamaysky, and Wang · first party technical publication

    Supports: preferred label, short definition, technical definition, variant distinction

    Limits: The paper's smoothing, sample, and empirical design are not copied into this package and do not validate its thresholds.

  3. Pine Script repainting concepts TradingView · official platform documentation

    Supports: preferred label, short definition, technical definition, variant distinction

    Limits: Platform display behavior does not establish financial usefulness or predictive value.

  4. Pine Script pivot techniques TradingView · official platform documentation

    Supports: preferred label, short definition, technical definition, variant distinction

    Limits: The package freezes its own equality, separation, and OHLC policies rather than claiming one universal pivot definition.

Reviewed by
fintech-builder-batch-012
Last reviewed
2026-08-10
Next review
2027-08-10
Record status
evidence reviewed

This record is evidence-reviewed and readable, but not yet promoted to published — it is served noindex,follow and excluded from the sitemap.

Written by

Fintech engineer building market-data and financial systems, and the author of every article, glossary record, and reference implementation on The Fintech Builder.