Every SportChartz market report names the pattern a game followed and uses a handful of chart terms to describe it. This page defines each one. Links in the reports bring you straight to the definition you need.
How to read our reports. Our charts treat a game like a stock: the Game Signal (a team’s chance of winning, from 0 to 100%) is the price, and the same tools traders use on stock charts read its moves. Market reports are written after the game, looking back at the whole chart. The trades they describe are the moves the chart offered in hindsight. They show what the patterns look like, not a promise of what the next game will do.
A team’s live chance of winning the game, from 0 to 100%. It moves with every play, and it is the “price” on every SportChartz chart. When a report says a team “traded at 32%,” it means its Game Signal was 32%.
Where the Game Signal “should” be, based on the pre-game betting line. The team favored by the spread is expected to be above 50%; the bigger the spread, the higher. Most patterns are about a team drifting far from where it was expected to be.
How far a team’s Game Signal sits below (undervalued) or above (overvalued) its expected level. A favorite trailing early can be badly undervalued; an underdog off to a hot start can be overvalued.
The team the pre-game spread expects to win is the favorite; the other is the underdog.
A long buys a team’s Game Signal expecting it to rise. A short expects it to fall. Shorting one team is the same as going long the other, so reports often describe a short as a buy on the opponent.
The entry is the point where a trade is taken, the exit where it is closed, and the return is the percentage change between the two prices. Buying at 30% and selling at 60% is a +100% return.
A 0-100 gauge of how hard and how fast the Game Signal has been moving. It doesn’t say who will win; it says whether a move has gone far, fast.
RSI below 30: the Game Signal has fallen hard and fast. An oversold favorite is often where a comeback starts, but not always (see Trap).
RSI above 70: the Game Signal has climbed hard and fast. An overbought underdog may be running ahead of itself.
A momentum indicator that compares a fast and a slow average of the Game Signal. When its histogram turns positive, momentum is turning up; negative, turning down. We use it to confirm other signals, not on its own.
The direction and strength of the Game Signal’s recent movement. A team “with momentum” is one whose Signal has been rising steadily.
Several independent signals pointing the same way at once, for example a favorite that is undervalued, oversold, trailing on the scoreboard, and showing MACD turning up. The more signals agree, the stronger the setup.
When the Game Signal and RSI disagree. If the Signal makes a new low but RSI does not, the selling is losing force, often an early sign of a turn.
A move that has run out of energy. RSI stalls or rolls over at an extreme even as the Game Signal keeps going; the move is likely to pause or reverse.
A sharp, final plunge where the Game Signal gives up hope: the moment the market writes a team off. Comebacks often start from a capitulation low, though not every low is one.
The idea that a team pushed far from where it was expected to be tends to drift back toward it. Most SportChartz buys are mean-reversion trades on undervalued favorites.
Support is a level the Game Signal has bounced up from; resistance is a level it has struggled to climb past. A break through either often leads to a bigger move.
The Game Signal pushing decisively through a resistance level, usually as one team takes control.
A Game Signal in a steep, unbroken drop. “Catching a falling knife” means buying before the fall has shown any sign of stopping.
A dip that looks like a buying chance but doesn’t come back. We count five warning signs after a team falls behind:
Three or more signs and the dip is a trap. Spotting traps is how we stay out of bad trades.
The mirror image of a Double Bottom: the Game Signal rises to the same high twice and fails to break through both times.
Every market report is labelled with one of these. The label is decided from the game’s chart by fixed rules, the same way for every game.
A team’s Game Signal plunges, turns, and climbs back at least 30 points: a “V” on the chart. The buy comes near the bottom of the V. Usually it’s the favorite coming back; sometimes it’s the underdog’s bounce, sold before the favorite pulls away. Since October 2026, only recoveries of 30+ points carry this label; smaller ones are a Modest Rebound.
A team dips and there is a small, tradable bounce, but nothing dramatic: the Game Signal recovers less than 30 points. Think of it as a V-Bottom’s quieter cousin.
The team dips, bounces, dips again and bounces again: two separate buying chances in the same game, neither a full V.
The favorite falls far behind its expected level and every warning sign says it will not recover (see Trap). Instead of fighting the fall, the trade goes with it, shorting the favorite, which is the same as backing the underdog. The favorite almost always goes on to lose.
The favorite falls behind, its Game Signal bounces, and the bounce is worth trading. But the fall resumes and the underdog wins. The name comes from the trader’s saying that even a dead cat bounces if it falls far enough. The lesson: a bounce is not a recovery. Take what it gives you.
The underdog is bought low, its Game Signal climbs, and it goes on to win the game.
The favorite fell behind and looked like a bargain, but enough warning signs fired that the dip was a trap. No trade. The value of this pattern is the loss it avoided.
Nothing in the game moved far enough from expectations to qualify as a trade. Standing aside is part of the method: most games don’t offer a clean setup, and the ones that do are worth more for it.
The underdog runs far above its expected level with RSI overbought, and the trade bets on it cooling off. Uncommon.
Reports written before October 2026 may carry these names.
The underdog won and there was a buy along the way. Since October 2026 this is split into two clearer patterns: Dead Cat Bounce, when the buy was on the favorite, and Underdog Rally, when it was on the underdog.
Overbought Exhaustion and Overbought Trap (an overbought team that faded; see Overbought Fade and Trap), Capitulation Buy (a buy at a capitulation low; see V-Bottom Recovery), Oversold Divergence (see Divergence), Game Flow Analysis (see No Clear Opportunity) and Cup & Handle (a rounded dip and a smaller pullback before a breakout, covered in our Academy videos).
