Gartley

The Pattern

The Gartley is the oldest of the harmonic patterns, named for H.M. Gartley who described the shape in 1935. It is a five-point structure: a leg from X to A, then a sequence of retracements and extensions that finish at D. The defining ratio is the completion: D sits at a 0.786 retracement of the whole X-to-A leg.

The B point retraces 0.618 of XA, C retraces between 0.382 and 0.886 of AB, and D projects 1.272 to 1.618 of BC while landing on that 0.786 of XA. When all four hold at once, the structure is a Gartley.

The Idea Behind It

A Gartley forms inside a trend. The X-to-A move is the trend leg; everything after it is a pullback that overshoots and then completes at a measured depth. D is read as the point where the pullback is exhausted and the original trend is likely to resume. Because D stays well short of X, the Gartley is a “buy the dip in an uptrend” structure rather than a bet on a full reversal.

When It Tends To Work

It works best when the larger trend is intact and the pullback into D is orderly. A clean 0.786 completion that lines up with prior support or resistance gives the structure more weight. The shallow completion means the stop sits close, so the reward-to-risk is favorable when it does turn.

When It Tends To Fail

It fails when the pullback is really the start of a reversal. Price slices through the 0.786 level and keeps going, and what looked like a dip becomes a new downtrend. Choppy, trendless conditions also produce Gartley shapes that go nowhere.

How This Strategy Trades It

On a completed Gartley, the strategy enters at the close of the confirming bar in the direction of the expected turn, targets a 0.618 retracement of the structure, and stops just beyond D. The shared mechanics are described on the Harmonic Patterns family page.

What The Backtest Says

The Gartley is roughly breakeven as a mechanical reversal, and its results vary by instrument and timeframe rather than pointing one clear way. The samples below on NQ, ES, and gold show that character: some cells turn a small profit, others give it back. Treat it as a structure to combine with trend context, not a standalone edge.