it is said that markets move sideways about 80% of the time, which means that directional breakouts do not occur often, or that most breakouts are false and fail to identify a new market direction. Classic accumulation and distribution formations, which occur at longterm lows and highs, attempt to find evolving changes in market sentiment. Because these formations occur only at extremes, and may extend for a long time, they represent the most obvious consolidation of price movement. Even a rounded, or saucer, bottom may have a number of false starts; it may seem to rum up in a uniform pattern, then fall back and begin another slow move up. In the long run the pattern looks as if it is a somewhat irregular but extended rounded bottom; however, using this pattern to enter a trade in a timely fashion can be disappointing and has resulted in the safe-but conservative technique of averaging in. Most other consolidation formations are best viewed in the same way as a simply horizontal sideways pattern,
bounded above by a resistance line and below by a support line. If this pattern occurs at reasonably low prices, we can eventually expect a breakout upward when the fundamentals change. Occasionally prices seem to become less volatile within the sideways pattern, and chartists take this opportunity to redefine the support and resistance levels so that they are narrower. Breakouts based on these more sensitive lines tend to be less reliable because they represent a temporary quiet period inside the normal level of market noise.