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Here, though, on this blog, my purpose is a bit different, and it relies on a third type of chart I see fairly often. This kind of chart shows a pattern of some sort, and it also shows some event or sequence of events that occurred after that pattern formed. Let me define my terms. A steady one year decline is a kind of pattern, but that pattern by definition cannot be followed by anything on a one year chart. A steady six or nine month decline, it is true, could be followed by something, by an event, and that event could be visible on a one year chart, together with the six or nine month decline.

This means I might be able to collect some examples of steady declines followed by some kind of event. A steady decline could arguably be followed by one of three types of events: an advance, a decline, or a period of sideways action. I might be able to collect, here, examples of steady declines followed by some or all of those.

Realistically, though, it's probably not that simple. I'm likely to find all sorts of things after steady declines, and then there's this: as events develop after a steady decline, it could become increasingly difficult to say, with confidence, that a given pattern, which occupies the first half or two thirds of a chart, would have been visibly a steady decline, on a one year chart.