Breakout setups and patterns

A base is a pause: a stock rises, then stops and trades sideways while buyers and sellers argue about the new price. The pivot is the price at the top of that argument. DocStoX scans 5,700+ NSE and BSE stocks every night for bases forming, and reports how far each one sits from its pivot.

The four stages#

Every stock in the scan sits at one point of the same lifecycle:

• Forming: still building a base, below the pivot.
• Fresh breakout: cleared the pivot in the last few sessions.
• Climbing: broke out earlier and is still holding above the pivot.
• Played out: broke out, then fell back below the pivot.

A stage is a position, not a rating. A stock that is forming has not proved anything yet, and one that has played out already made its move.

What each screen looks for#

Screen groups bases into shapes, each with its own catch:

• VCP (volatility contraction pattern): each pullback in the base is shallower than the one before, and volume fades as the range tightens. A tightening range means supply is thinning, not that a buyer is waiting. Ranges also tighten right before a stock breaks the other way.
• High since 2020: the base sits at the highest price in the data DocStoX holds, which starts in 2020. This is not an all-time high. A stock that peaked before 2020 can still have sellers waiting above this level.
• Multi-year: a long base, measured in years rather than weeks. Length alone does not say which way it resolves.
• IPO base: the first base a recently listed company forms. There is little history for the usual trend filters to work with, and a lock-in expiry can put supply on the market that no chart predicted.

The /setups pages#

Open any of these from the sub-navigation under Setups:

• Screen (/setups): the live scan, filterable by shape, stage, sector and distance to pivot.
• Build (/setups/builder): build your own screen from around 60 price, volume and trend measures, with a live match count as you move each slider.
• Breakouts (/setups/breakouts): stocks that closed above their pivot in the last five sessions, grouped by day, with the breakout close and the breakout-day volume multiple.
• Updates (/setups/updates): what changed since the last close, night to night: new bases, new breakouts, and breakouts that fell back below their pivot.
• Patterns (/setups/patterns): candlestick and chart pattern detection, covered below.
• Market (/setups/market): breadth across the scan, sector strength and a sector rotation view.

Selecting a stock takes you to its own page (/setups/[symbol]), which draws its base history on a chart and lists each base the stock has formed.

Patterns#

The Patterns screen detects chart and candlestick patterns such as VCPs, double tops and bottoms, support breakdowns, 52-week highs and lows, NR7 and inside days. Each pattern moves through a lifecycle: taking shape, formed, near trigger, triggered, then either held or failed.

Every pattern reports a shape match, which is how closely the pattern fits its written definition. This is never shown as a confidence, probability or rating. Direction is described as a property of the shape ("upward pattern"), never as a forecast, because ranges can tighten before a stock breaks in either direction.

What is free and what is Pro Pro#

The screen, the builder and the reference material are open to everyone. Signed-out and Free visitors see the first rows of the results: for example, Breakouts shows the 10 most recent for a Free account, and a stock's own page shows only its most recent base. Pro removes that cap and shows the full base history on every stock's page.

What this cannot tell you#

The methodology page at /methodology/setups states the limits of the underlying data plainly, and this page repeats the ones that matter most before you rely on a setup:

• Price history starts in 2020. A "high since 2020" is not an all-time high. A stock that peaked in 2017 and never regained that level can still show as being at a high, with owners above it still waiting to get out.
• Some price series carry an unadjusted split or bonus. DocStoX divides prices back through every corporate action it holds a record of, but a small number of discontinuities remain. A setup whose window contains an unexplained move of more than 35% is flagged on the card rather than silently dropped.
• No setup carries a probability, a hit rate or a score. These describe a population of trades under one fixed set of rules, not the specific base you are looking at.
• Setups update after the market closes, from split-adjusted daily prices. A pivot crossed during the day appears on the site that evening, not live.

DocStoX does run a portfolio backtest of the base-and-breakout method as a whole, published at /methodology/setups alongside its assumptions. Stated there plainly: over 2021 to 2026 the method did not beat simply holding a midcap index fund, and it drew down further along the way. That window contains no sustained bear market, which is the one thing a stop-loss is really for. Read the full methodology before treating any setup as more than a description of price behaviour.

• TechnicalsRSI, MACD and moving averages for one stock at a time.
• LimitationsWhat DocStoX data cannot tell you, in one place.