What Is an Ascending Triangle?

An ascending triangle is a chart pattern used in technical analysis. It is created by price moves that allow for a horizontal line to be drawn along the swing highs and a rising trendline to be drawn along the swing lows. The two lines form a triangle. Traders often watch for breakouts from triangle patterns. The breakout can occur to the upside or downside.

Ascending triangles are often called continuation patterns since price will typically break out in the same direction as the trend that was in place just prior to the triangle forming.

An ascending triangle is tradable in that it provides a clear entry point, profit target, and stop-loss level. It may be contrasted with a descending triangle.

What Does the Ascending Triangle Tell You?

An ascending triangle is generally considered to be a continuation pattern, meaning that the pattern is significant if it occurs within an uptrend or downtrend. Once the breakout from the triangle occurs, traders tend to aggressively buy or sell the asset depending on which direction the price broke out.

Increasing volume helps to confirm the breakout, as it shows rising interest as the price moves out of the pattern.

A minimum of two swing highs and two swing lows are required to form the ascending triangle’s trendlines. But a greater number of trendline touches tends to produce more reliable trading results. Since the trendlines are converging on one another, if the price continues to move within a triangle for multiple swings, the price action becomes more coiled, likely leading to a stronger eventual breakout.

Volume tends to be stronger during trending periods than during consolidation periods. A triangle is a type of consolidation, and therefore volume tends to contract during an ascending triangle. As mentioned, traders look for volume to increase on a breakout, as this helps confirm the price is likely to keep heading in the breakout direction. If the price breaks out on low volume, that is a warning sign that the breakout lacks strength. This could mean the price will move back into the pattern. This is called a false breakout.

For trading purposes, an entry is typically taken when the price breaks out. Buy if the breakout occurs to the upside, or short/sell if a breakout occurs to the downside. A stop loss is placed just outside the opposite side of the pattern. For example, if a long trade is taken on an upside breakout, a stop loss is placed just below the lower trendline.

A profit target can be estimated based on the height of the triangle added or subtracted from the breakout price. The thickest part of the triangle is used. If the triangle is $5 high, add $5 to the upside breakout point to get the price target. If the price breaks lower, the profit target is the breakout point less $5.

Example of How to Interpret the Ascending Triangle

Here an ascending triangle forms during a downtrend, and the price continues lower following the breakout. Once the breakout occurred, the profit target was attained. The short entry or sell signal occurred when the price broke below the lower trendline. A stop loss could be placed just above the upper trendline.

Wide patterns like this present a higher risk/reward than patterns that get substantially narrower as time goes on. As a pattern narrows, the stop loss becomes smaller since the distance to the breakout point is smaller, yet the profit target is still based on the largest part of the pattern.

The Difference Between an Ascending Triangle and a Descending Triangle

These two types of triangles are both continuation patterns, except they have a different look. The descending triangle has a horizontal lower line, while the upper trendline is descending. This is the opposite of the ascending triangle, which has a rising lower trendline and a horizontal upper trendline.

Limitations of Trading the Ascending Triangle

The main problem with triangles, and chart patterns in general, is the potential for false breakouts. The price may move out of the pattern only to move back into it, or the price may even proceed to break out the other side. A pattern may need to be redrawn several times as the price edges past the trendlines but fails to generate any momentum in the breakout direction.

While ascending triangles provide a profit target, that target is just an estimate. The price may far exceed that target, or fail to reach it.

Psychology of the Ascending Triangle

Like other chart patterns, ascending triangles indicate the psychology of the market participants underlying the price action. In this case, buyers repeatedly drive the price higher until it reaches the horizontal line at the top of the ascending triangle. The horizontal line represents a level of resistance—the point where sellers step in to return the price to lower levels.

As the price drops downward from the horizontal resistance level, buyers begin to show their resolve, and the price fails to reach the recent low, with the trend turning upward once again at a higher swing low. In other words, the upward-sloping trendline that forms the lower boundary of the ascending triangle is acting as support—the level where buyers jump in and prevent the price from falling any lower.

In a well-defined ascending triangle pattern, the price bounces between the horizontal resistance line and the lower trendline. The lines of the triangle eventually converge, setting the stage for a showdown between upward and downward pressure that could determine which direction the price will move out of the pattern. As it approaches the vertex of the triangle, the price will either break out above the resistance level, suggesting additional gains ahead, or it will fall below the support level, increasing the likelihood that the price will decline.

The Bottom Line

An ascending triangle is a technical analysis chart pattern that occurs when the price of an asset fluctuates between a horizontal upper trendline and an upward-sloping lower trendline. Since the price has a tendency to break out in the same direction as the trend in place before the formation of the triangle, ascending triangles are often called continuation patterns. Traders often wait for the price to break above or below the pattern before entering a position. The ascending triangle pattern is particularly useful for traders because it suggests a clear entry point, profit target, and stop-loss level.

What Is Anti Money Laundering (AML)?

Anti money laundering (AML) refers to the web of laws, regulations, and procedures aimed at uncovering efforts to disguise illicit funds as legitimate income. Money laundering seeks to conceal crimes ranging from small-time tax evasion and drug trafficking to public corruption and the financing of groups designated as terrorist organizations.

AML legislation was a response to the growth of the financial industry, the lifting of international capital controls and the growing ease of conducting complex chains of financial transactions.

A high-level United Nations panel has estimated annual money laundering flows at $1.6 trillion, accounting for 2.7% of global GDP in 2020.

Understanding Anti Money Laundering (AML)

AML regulations in the U.S. have expanded from the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act’s requirement that banks report cash deposits of more than $10,000 to a complex regulatory framework requiring financial institutions to conduct due diligence on customers and to seek out and report suspicious transactions. The European Union and other jurisdictions have adopted similar measures.

Know Your Customer

For banks, compliance starts with verifying the identity of new clients, a process sometimes called Know Your Customer (KYC). In addition to establishing the customer’s identity, banks are required to understand the nature of a client’s activity and verify deposited funds are from a legitimate source.

The KYC process also requires banks and brokers to screen new customers against lists of crime suspects, individuals and companies under economic sanctions, and “politically exposed persons”—foreign public officials, their family members and close associates.

Money laundering can be divided into three steps:

• Deposit of illicit funds into the financial system
• Transactions designed to conceal the illicit origin of the funds, known as “layering”
• Use of laundered funds to acquire real estate, financial instruments or commercial investments

The KYC process aims to stop such schemes at the first deposit window.

Customer Due Diligence

Customer due diligence is integral to the KYC process, for example by ensuring the information a potential customer provides is accurate and legitimate. But it is also a constant process extending to customers old and new, and their transactions.

Customer due diligence requires ongoing assessment of the risk of money laundering posed by each client and the use of that risk-based approach to conduct closer due diligence for those identified as higher non-compliance risks. That includes identifying customers as they are added to sanctions and other AML lists.

According to the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the four core requirements of customer due diligence in the U.S. are:

• Identifying and verifying the customer’s identity
• Identifying and verifying the identity of beneficial owners with a stake of 25% or more in a company opening an account
• Understanding the nature and purpose of customer relationships to develop customer risk profiles
• Conducting ongoing monitoring to identify and report suspicious transactions and update customer information 

Customer due diligence seeks to detect money laundering strategies including layering and structuring, also known as “smurfing”—the breaking up of large money laundering transactions into smaller ones to evade reporting limits and avoid scrutiny.

One rule in place to foil layering is the AML holding period, which requires deposits to remain in an account for a minimum of five trading days before they can be transferred elsewhere.

Financial institutions are required to develop and implement a written AML compliance policy, which much be approved in writing by a member of senior management and overseen by a designated AML compliance officer. These programs must specify “risk-based procedures for conducting ongoing customer due diligence” and conduct “ongoing monitoring to identify and report suspicious transactions.”

History of Anti Money Laundering

Efforts to police illicit gains have a history stretching back centuries, while the term “money laundering” is only about 100 years old and in wide use for less than 50.

The first major piece of U.S. AML legislation was the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act, passed in part to thwart organized crime. In addition to requiring banks to report cash deposits of more than $10,000, the legislation also required banks to identify individuals conducting transactions and to maintain records of transactions. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Bank Secrecy Act’s constitutionality in 1974, the same year “money laundering” entered wide use amid the Watergate scandal.

Additional legislation passed in the 1980s amid increased efforts to fight drug trafficking, in the 1990s to expand financial monitoring and in the 2000s to cut off funding for terrorist organizations.

Anti-money laundering assumed greater global prominence in 1989, when a group of countries and international organizations formed the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Its mission is to devise international standards to prevent money laundering and promote their adoption. In October 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, FATF expanded its mandate to include combating terrorist financing.

Another important organization in the fight against money laundering is the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Like the FATF, the IMF has pressed its member countries to comply with international standards to thwart terrorist financing.

The United Nations included AML provisions in its 1998 Vienna Convention addressing drug trafficking, the 2001 Palermo Convention against international organized crime and the 2005 Merida Convention against corruption.

The Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, passed in early 2021, was the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. AML regulations since the Patriot Act of 2001. The 2021 legislation included the Corporate Transparency Act, which made it harder to use shell companies to evade anti-money laundering and economic sanctions measures.

The legislation also subjected cryptocurrency exchanges as well as arts and antiquities dealers to the same customer due diligence requirements as financial institutions.

What Is Assurance?

Assurance refers to financial coverage that provides remuneration for an event that is certain to happen. Assurance is similar to insurance, with the terms often used interchangeably. However, insurance refers to coverage over a limited time, whereas assurance applies to persistent coverage for extended periods or until death. Assurance may also apply to validation services provided by accountants and other professionals.

How Assurance Works

One of the best examples of assurance is whole life insurance as opposed to term life insurance. In the U.K., “life assurance” is another name for life insurance. The adverse event that both whole life and term life insurance deal with is the death of the person the policy covers. Since the death of the covered person is certain, a life assurance policy (whole life insurance) results in payment to the beneficiary when the policyholder dies. 

A term life insurance policy, however, covers a fixed period—such as 10, 20, or 30 years—from the policy’s purchase date. If the policyholder dies during that time, the beneficiary receives money, but if the policyholder dies after the term, no benefit is received. The assurance policy covers an event that will happen no matter what, while the insurance policy covers a covered incident that might occur (the policyholder might die within the next 30 years).

Types of Assurance

Assurance can also refer to professional services provided by accountants, lawyers, and other professionals. These professionals assure the integrity and usability of documents and information produced by businesses and other organizations. Assurance in this context helps companies and other institutions manage risk and evaluate potential pitfalls. Audits are one example of assurance provided by such firms for businesses to assure that information provided to shareholders is accurate and impartial.

Assurance services are a type of independent professional service usually provided by certified or chartered accountants, such as certified public accountants (CPAs). Assurance services can include a review of any financial document or transaction, such as a loan, contract, or financial website. This review certifies the correctness and validity of the item being reviewed by the CPA.

Example of Assurance

As an example of assurance services, say investors of a publicly-traded company grow suspicious that the company is recognizing revenue too early. Early realization of revenue might lead to positive financial results in upcoming quarters, but it can also lead to worse results in the future.

Under pressure from shareholders, company management agrees to hire an assurance firm to review its accounting procedures and systems to provide a report to shareholders. The summary will assure shareholders and investors that the company’s financial statements are accurate and revenue recognition policies are in line with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

The assurance firm reviews the financial statements, interviews accounting department personnel, and speaks with customers and clients. The assurance firm makes sure that the company in question has followed GAAP and assures stakeholders that the company’s results are sound.

Assurance vs. Negative Assurance

Assurance refers to the high degree of certainty that something is accurate, complete, and usable. Professionals affirm these positive assurances after careful review of the documents and information subject to the audit or review.

Negative assurance refers to the level of certainty that something is accurate because no proof to the contrary is present. In other words, since there is no proof that the information is inaccurate or that deceptive practices (e.g., fraud) occurred, it is presumed to be accurate.

Negative assurance usually follows assurance of the same set of facts and is done to ensure that the first review was appropriate and without falsifications or gross errors. Therefore, the amount of scrutiny is not as intense as the first review because the negative assurance auditor purposefully looks for misstatements, violations, and deception.

Assurance FAQs

What Does Life Assurance Mean?

Assurance has dual meanings in business. It refers to the coverage that pays a benefit for a covered event that will eventually happen. Assurance also refers to the assurance given by auditing professionals regarding the validity and accuracy of reviewed documents and information. These auditors exercise great care to make these positive assurances.

What Is an Example of Assurance?

Whole life insurance is perhaps one of the best-understood examples of assurance. As long as the policy remains in force, this type of insurance guarantees to pay a death benefit at the death of the insured, despite how long that event takes to occur.

What Is Meant by Assurance in Auditing?

Assurance in auditing refers to the opinions issued by a professional regarding the accuracy and completeness of what’s analyzed. For example, an accountant assuring that financial statements are accurate and valid asserts that they have reviewed the documents using acceptable accounting standards and principles.

What Is the Difference Between Life Insurance and Assurance?

Life insurance and life assurance are often used interchangeably and sometimes refer to the same type of contract. However, life insurance is coverage that pays a benefit for the death of the insured if the death occurs during the limited, contractual term. Assurance or life assurance is coverage that pays a benefit upon the death of the insured despite how long it takes for that death to occur.

What Kind of Company Is an Assurance Company?

An assurance company could be a life insurance/assurance company providing benefits upon the certain death of the insured, but commonly refers to an accounting or auditing firm providing assurance services to businesses and organizations. These services include complete and intense reviews of documents, transactions, or information. The purpose of these reviews is to confirm and assure the accuracy of what was reviewed.

The Bottom Line

Assurance is coverage that pays a benefit upon the eventual occurrence of a certain event. It also refers to a service rendered by a professional to confirm the validity and accuracy of reviewed documents and information. Assurances in auditing can help companies address risks and potential problems affecting the accuracy of their reporting. On the contrary, negative assurance is a less intense review that also provides a form of assurance. Negative assurance asserts that what was reviewed is accurate because nothing contradicting this claim exists.

What Is the Aroon Indicator?

The Aroon indicator is a technical indicator that is used to identify trend changes in the price of an asset, as well as the strength of that trend. In essence, the indicator measures the time between highs and the time between lows over a time period. The idea is that strong uptrends will regularly see new highs, and strong downtrends will regularly see new lows. The indicator signals when this is happening, and when it isn’t.

The indicator consists of the “Aroon up” line, which measures the strength of the uptrend, and the “Aroon down” line, which measures the strength of the downtrend.

The Aroon indicator was developed by Tushar Chande in 1995.

Formulas for the Aroon Indicator


$\begin{aligned} \text{Aroon Up}&= \frac{25-\text{Periods Since 25 period High}}{25} \ast100\\ \text{Aroon Down}&=\frac{25-\text{Periods Since 25 period Low}}{25}\ast100 \end{aligned}$Aroon UpAroon Down​=2525−Periods Since 25 period High​∗100=2525−Periods Since 25 period Low​∗100​

How to Calculate the Aroon Indicator

The Aroon calculation requires the tracking of the high and low prices, typically over 25 periods.

1. Track the highs and lows for the last 25 periods on an asset.
2. Note the number of periods since the last high and low.
3. Plug these numbers into the Up and Down Aroon formulas.

What Does the Aroon Indicator Tell You?

The Aroon Up and the Aroon Down lines fluctuate between zero and 100, with values close to 100 indicating a strong trend and values near zero indicating a weak trend. The lower the Aroon Up, the weaker the uptrend and the stronger the downtrend, and vice versa. The main assumption underlying this indicator is that a stock’s price will close regularly at new highs during an uptrend, and regularly make new lows in a downtrend.

The indicator focuses on the last 25 periods, but is scaled to zero and 100. Therefore, an Aroon Up reading above 50 means the price made a new high within the last 12.5 periods. A reading near 100 means a high was seen very recently. The same concepts apply to the Down Aroon. When it is above 50, a low was witnessed within the 12.5 periods. A Down reading near 100 means a low was seen very recently.

Crossovers can signal entry or exit points. Up crossing above Down can be a signal to buy. Down crossing below Up may be a signal to sell.

When both indicators are below 50 it can signal that the price is consolidating. New highs or lows are not being created. Traders can watch for breakouts as well as the next Aroon crossover to signal which direction price is going.

Example of How to Use the Aroon Indicator

The following chart shows an example of the Aroon indicator and how it can be interpreted.

In the chart above, there is both the Aroon indicator and an oscillator that combines both lines into a single reading of between 100 and -100. The crossover of the Aroon Up and Aroon Down indicated a reversal in the trend. While the index was trending, prior to the reversal, the Aroon Down remained very low, suggesting that the index had a bullish bias. Despite the rally on the far right, the Aroon indicator hasn’t shown a bullish bias yet. This is because the price rebounded so quickly that it hasn’t made a new high in the last 25 periods (at the time of the screenshot), despite the rally.

The Difference Between the Aroon Indicator and the Directional Movement Index (DMI)

The Aroon indicator is similar to the Directional Movement Index (DMI) developed by Welles Wilder. It too uses up and down lines to show the direction of a trend. The main difference is that the Aroon indicator formulas are primarily focused on the amount of time between highs and lows. The DMI measures the price difference between current highs/lows and prior highs/lows. Therefore, the main factor in the DMI is price, and not time.

Limitations of Using the Aroon Indicator

The Aroon indicator may at times signal a good entry or exit, but other times it will provide poor or false signals. The buy or sell signal may occur too late, after a substantial price move has already occurred. This happens because the indicator is looking backwards, and isn’t predictive in nature.

A crossover may look good on the indicator, but that doesn’t mean the price will necessarily make a big move. The indicator isn’t factoring the size of moves, it only cares about the number of days since a high or low. Even if the price is relatively flat, crossovers will occur as eventually a new high or low will be made within the last 25 periods. Traders still need to use price analysis, and potentially other indicators, to make informed trading decisions. Relying solely on one indicator isn’t advised.