Bear Trap
A bear trap is a chart pattern in which price briefly breaks below a recognised support level — suggesting a downside breakdown — and then quickly reverses back above that level. Traders who interpreted the initial break as the start of a fall, and who positioned for further weakness (for example by going short), can find the move was not sustained. On NSE cash and NSE F&O charts it is identified only after the reversal, when price has reclaimed the broken support.
Also called: bear trap, beartrap, bear-trap, false breakdown, failed breakdown
How it is read
It is commonly read as a "false breakdown": the dip under support fails to attract continued selling and the level holds on a closing or sustained basis. Observers often look at whether the break was on weak or thin volume, how fast price reclaimed the level, and whether the reclaim held into the close, treating a quick recovery above prior support as a sign the breakdown did not follow through. The name reflects that participants leaning bearish were caught on the wrong side when the level reasserted itself.
What it does not tell you
It does not predict how far or how long any subsequent move runs, and it carries no price target. The pattern is only confirmable in hindsight — a break under support that keeps falling is a genuine breakdown, not a trap, and the two look identical at the moment of the break. A reclaim of support can also fail again, so a single bar poking back above the level is not proof the trap is complete. Volume, the reclaim, and the close are descriptive context, not guarantees, and the pattern says nothing about why price moved.
See bear trap in a synthetic case study
A short, anonymous example showing how this shows up in price, volume or open-interest data.
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