What is PatternX?

PatternX is trading software that detects 20 technical chart patterns across cryptocurrency, US stock, ETF and FX markets, scores each setup with fixed, published rules, and can place the trade through the exchange or broker account you connect. It has three parts: the deterministic PatternX Classic engine, the optional PatternX AI context layer, and Momentum Lab for premarket momentum strategies on US stocks. Risk controls are checked before every order, and live trades get a stop at the venue wherever the venue accepts one.

In practice, PatternX scans the symbols and timeframes you choose for formations such as a double bottom or a bull flag, drops setups that fail its market-quality checks, and turns the rest into signals with an entry, a stop-loss, a take-profit and a confidence score. Each connection runs in manual mode, where you approve every signal, or in automatic mode, with paper or live trading.

PatternX is software, not a broker, exchange or investment adviser, and nothing it shows is financial advice. It never holds your money: funds stay at your exchange or broker, connected with API keys that should allow trading but never withdrawals. Plans run from Free ($0) to Elite ($299/month); see pricing. The pattern library and the methodology document how each part works.

PatternX exists to make chart-pattern trading rule-based, explainable and protected. Each of those aims shows up in how the product works.

• Rule-based. Reading a chart pattern is usually a judgment call: where the neckline sits, whether a pullback is shallow enough, whether volume backed the move. PatternX replaces that judgment with fixed definitions applied the same way to every chart, so a setup does not depend on mood, fatigue or hindsight. See how detection works.
• Explainable. Signals show their PatternX Score breakdown, factor by factor, and the weights behind it are published, as are the factors the AI layer uses. You can see why a setup qualified instead of trusting a verdict. See the PatternX Score.
• Protected. Every order passes a risk engine first, new connections start in paper mode, and live trades get a stop at the venue. A position the venue will not protect is closed rather than held. See risk controls.

PatternX does not try to predict markets with certainty. Its purpose is narrower: to find clearly defined setups consistently, show its reasoning, and limit the damage when a setup fails.

Trading chart patterns by hand runs into the same practical problems again and again. PatternX answers each one with a specific mechanism:

• Too many charts to watch. A breakout can happen on any symbol and timeframe you follow, often while you are looking elsewhere. PatternX rescans your tracked symbols on your chosen timeframes every 10 to 120 seconds, depending on your plan.
• Inconsistent pattern reading. Two traders, or one trader on two different days, can label the same chart differently. PatternX applies the same fixed tolerances to every chart.
• Trades left without a stop. A late or missing stop can turn an ordinary loss into a large one. On a live trade, PatternX places the stop at the venue right after the fill and closes the position if the venue refuses it.
• Overtrading after losses. The risk engine applies a daily loss limit and a cooldown after consecutive losses.
• Opaque "AI". When a tool does not say what its AI decides, you cannot judge its signals. PatternX publishes the factors and weights of its AI layer and states plainly that it never detects patterns.

PatternX does not remove market risk. It is designed to reduce avoidable process mistakes, and the limitations page lists what it cannot do.

PatternX Classic is the deterministic chart-pattern engine, included on every plan from Free to Elite. It turns market data into signals in a fixed sequence:

1. Detection. 20 rule-based detectors each check the recent candles of every tracked symbol and timeframe for one formation. A match needs its breakout on the latest bar.
2. Market-quality filters. Every match must pass the same checks: breakout-bar volume of at least 1.2× the 20-bar average, enough volatility and liquidity, a spread no wider than 0.25%, no strongly opposing order book and, for crypto, at least $3M of 24-hour volume.
3. PatternX Score. Survivors are scored from 0 to 100 on 13 weighted factors. The score becomes the signal's confidence, and anything below 50 is discarded.
4. Your settings and the risk engine. Your minimum confidence (65 by default), enabled patterns and take-profit and stop-loss settings apply, and the risk engine checks the order.

The result is a signal with an entry, a stop-loss, a take-profit and a score breakdown, which you approve or let execute automatically. The same candles always give the same detection result. Read more about PatternX Classic, the PatternX Score and pattern detection.

PatternX AI is an optional evaluation layer on the Pro and Elite plans. It scores setups the deterministic engine has already detected on 8 fixed context factors, and it can veto a setup or re-weight its confidence. It never detects, finds or invents chart patterns. It is a transparent weighted formula computed from market data and PatternX's own trade record: not a machine-learning model, not a large language model, and it makes no external calls.

The 8 factors are trend strength, market structure, volatility regime, volume quality, momentum, confluence, historical similarity and funding-rate sentiment. Each is scored from 0 to 100, and their weighted mean is the context score. A setup is dropped unless that score is at least 48 and market structure and momentum are not both weak. A setup that survives gets a re-weighted confidence and a short templated note explaining the result.

AI mode leaves take-profit, stop-loss, position size, risk checks and execution unchanged, and if an evaluation fails with an error, that setup is handled as Classic. Pro accounts can take up to 5 trades a day in AI mode; Elite has no AI-mode cap.

Large language models have a separate job: they only write explanations, reports and answers. See PatternX AI and Classic vs AI.

Momentum Lab is an Elite feature that runs configurable momentum strategies on US stocks around the premarket session and the open, in paper mode or live through Interactive Brokers or Alpaca. It is included in Elite and in the 7-day Elite pass; other plans see a preview. It has three strategies:

• Premarket Momentum Breakout triggers when a stock's premarket move crosses a level, 5% by default, after PatternX has seen it below that level.
• Momentum Reversal waits for a premarket move of at least 8%, then triggers on a 1.5% pullback from the extreme: short a fading gainer, long a recovering loser.
• Opening Momentum Continuation qualifies a mover in the premarket and can enter only in the regular session, after a confirmation such as a break of the premarket high within 15 minutes of the open.

The strategies only detect. Each candidate must also pass filters for price, premarket volume, dollar volume, spread and a mandatory market-cap floor, plus sizing limits and lab-wide circuit breakers. A kill switch blocks new entries and cancels working entry orders; breakers block entries but do not close positions. A trailing stop is not a maximum loss, because gaps, spreads and slippage can make a loss larger. Details: Momentum Lab and its methodology.

PatternX connects to 53 venues: 40 crypto exchanges and 13 brokers. It reads crypto prices from each exchange's public data, while broker prices come through your own broker connection.

For brokers, you track instruments from a curated list of 309: 123 US stocks, 67 ETFs, 62 leveraged and inverse ETFs, 29 Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, and 28 forex pairs and spot metals, including gold and silver. Interactive Brokers, Alpaca and Tradier cover the US-listed instruments, Saxo and IG add FX, and OANDA is FX only. For crypto, the symbol picker lists each exchange's 20 highest-volume pairs. See crypto markets and stocks, ETFs and FX.

PatternX treats a chart pattern as a probability, not a promise, and builds every trade around what happens if the pattern fails. Each principle below is built into the product:

• Define the exit before the entry. Every signal arrives with its stop-loss and take-profit already set, and a setup with a reward:risk ratio below 1, meaning less potential reward than risk, is dropped.
• Size from risk, not conviction. By default a trade risks 1% of the balance; position size is that risk divided by the stop distance, so a wider stop means a smaller position.
• Trade fewer, cleaner setups. A pattern must also pass market-quality filters and your minimum confidence before it becomes a signal.
• Read confidence as a filter, not a forecast. The PatternX Score decides whether a setup clears your bar. The probability shown with a signal is a heuristic derived from that score, and the reliability priors inside the score are fixed values, not measured statistics.
• Test before you risk money. Backtests replay the same engine on historical candles, and new connections trade on paper until you switch them to live.

None of this makes a trade safe. Markets gap, stops slip and patterns fail; limitations explains where the approach falls short.

PatternX detects chart patterns with fixed geometric rules; nothing is learned from data. Each of the 20 detectors finds swing highs and lows in a fixed window of recent candles and checks one pattern's tolerances: how equal two peaks must be, how deep a pullback may go, how a neckline or trendline is drawn.

Three properties follow:

• Repeatable. Detection depends only on the candles, so the same candles always produce the same result, live or in a backtest. The score that follows adds market data such as spread and order-book balance, again with fixed weights.
• Published. The thresholds are documented in pattern detection and on each page of the pattern library, so you can check any signal against the rule that produced it.
• Honest about timing. A detector needs the breakout on the latest bar, and that bar may still be forming. A breakout seen partway through a bar can reverse before the bar is complete, so a signal is not a confirmed breakout.

Fixed rules have costs too. A formation larger than a detector's window is not seen, swing points are confirmed a few bars late, and a rule does not adapt to an unusual market. See deterministic trading.

PatternX's position on AI is simple: AI may evaluate and explain, but every decision that can lead to an order follows rules you can read.

• AI evaluates; it never invents. PatternX AI only sees setups the deterministic engine has already detected, filtered and scored. It can veto a setup or re-weight its confidence. It cannot create a pattern, a signal or a trade, and it does not touch stops, targets or position size.
• Every factor is published. The AI layer is a fixed formula with 8 named factors and fixed weights, documented in the AI context layer. Nothing is trained, and the formula does not change on its own.
• Language models write words, not trades. Large language models write signal explanations, daily, weekly and monthly reports, lessons, backtest write-ups and assistant answers. They never detect patterns, check risk or place orders, and they are instructed never to tell you to buy or sell and never to invent statistics.
• Failure falls back to rules. If an AI evaluation fails with an error, the setup is handled exactly as in Classic.

Momentum Lab's optional AI filter, off by default, follows the same approach: a deterministic weighted formula that can only skip or rank candidates. Classic vs AI compares both modes.

PatternX assumes that any trade can lose, so protection is applied before an order exists, not after something goes wrong.

• Risk checks before every order. The risk engine checks kill switches, your daily trade limit, a daily loss limit (10% of balance by default), the open-trade limit, a cooldown after 3 losses in a row, the US pattern-day-trader rule and free margin, then sizes the position from your risk per trade.
• Stops at the venue. On a live trade, PatternX places the stop-loss at the exchange or broker right after the fill. If the venue refuses it, PatternX closes the position at market and alerts you rather than hold it unprotected.
• Paper first. Every new connection starts in paper mode. Going live requires a passing connection test and an API key not known to allow withdrawals.
• Limits you control. You can pause all trading at any time, and Elite adds optional circuit breakers and correlation limits.
• No promises. A stop can fill worse than its price in a gap or a fast market. Trailing stops and break-even moves on the signal engine run in PatternX's own software, so they work only while it runs and can reach the venue. Paper fills are simulated.

See risk controls and the risk disclaimer.

Each principle below corresponds to something you can check in the product:

• Transparency. Detection rules, score weights, AI factors and filter thresholds are published in the methodology, and signals show their PatternX Score breakdown.
• You stay in control. Every connection starts in manual approval mode and in paper trading; automatic execution and live trading are switched on by you. You choose the patterns, timeframes, minimum confidence and risk limits, and you can pause all trading at any time.
• Safety is not paywalled. The risk engine runs on every plan, and Momentum Lab's stop control and manual exits work on every plan, even where its other settings are reserved for Elite.
• Honesty about limitations. A dedicated limitations page covers forming bars, fixed windows, scan cadence, simplified backtests and software-managed stops, and research studies publish their methods before any results.
• Self-service privacy. You can export all your data or delete your account yourself from Settings, without a support ticket. Exchange credentials stay encrypted and are never shown again after you save them.
• Your money stays yours. PatternX never holds funds; orders go through the account you connect.

The trust center covers security, privacy and data handling in detail, and the FAQ answers common questions.