NVDA Breakout Pattern: Success Rate and Average Return

Defining the Breakout

For this analysis, we define an NVDA breakout as a daily close above the highest close of the prior 20 trading days — a classic Donchian-style definition that filters out noise while still catching meaningful momentum shifts. Across 2016-2026, NVDA has printed roughly 140 such breakout days, or about once every 18 trading days on average. That's considerably more frequent than SPY, which triggers the same definition about once every 28 days.

This isn't surprising — NVDA spends a disproportionate amount of time in uptrends relative to the average large cap. Over the past decade, the stock has compounded at a rate that puts it in the top decile of the Russell 1000, and trend persistence is part of that story.

Base Rate: Roughly 62% of NVDA 20-Day Breakouts Work

Defining 'works' as a positive return over the next 10 days, about 62% of NVDA's 20-day breakouts have followed through. The average 10-day return after a breakout has been approximately +3.4%, versus the unconditional NVDA 10-day average of roughly +1.2%. That's a meaningful edge, though smaller than the hype around breakouts might suggest.

The 20-day win rate is roughly 64%, with an average return around +5.1%. That's stronger than the 10-day number because winning breakouts tend to keep running, while losing breakouts tend to fail early. This is consistent with what you'd expect from a momentum effect: the winners compound, the losers cut themselves off.

• 5-day post-breakout: ~60% win rate, ~+2.0% average return
• 10-day post-breakout: ~62% win rate, ~+3.4% average return
• 20-day post-breakout: ~64% win rate, ~+5.1% average return
• Unconditional 20-day average (any day): ~+2.4%

Volume Confirmation Roughly Doubles the Edge

Filtering further: if you require the breakout day to print volume at least 50% above the 20-day average, the 10-day win rate jumps to roughly 70% and the average return climbs to around +5.2%. High-volume breakouts are the ones driven by actual institutional participation — not just drift through a stale resistance level.

Low-volume breakouts (volume below the 20-day average) perform noticeably worse. The 10-day win rate drops to about 55% and the average return is roughly flat. If you see NVDA break a 20-day high on light volume, the historical base rate suggests skepticism.

Failed Breakouts Are the Best Fade Setup

The flip side of the breakout is the failure. A failed breakout — defined here as an NVDA close back below the prior 20-day high within 3 days of the breakout — has historically been a strong short-term short signal. The average 5-day return after a failed breakout has been roughly -1.8%, with a win rate for short positions around 63%.

This aligns with general market structure: when a breakout fails, the traders who bought it are now underwater, and their forced exits create downside pressure. It's the mirror image of the successful breakout's upside pressure.

Searching for the Current NVDA Setup

Rather than relying on static rules, the most useful approach is to compare the current NVDA chart to the closest historical analogs. Chart Library's pattern search does this in about 9 milliseconds. The matches may include historical breakouts, pullbacks, or consolidations — whatever actually looks like the current chart.

If you want to dig deeper, the Python SDK gives you the full match list, similarity scores, and forward returns:

from chartlibrary import ChartLibrary cl = ChartLibrary(api_key="cl_...") matches = cl.search("NVDA", top_k=10) for m in matches: print(m.symbol, m.date, m.distance, m.forward_return_10d)

For related context, see our posts on bull flag pattern data and the broader stock breakouts 2025 dataset — both use the same underlying embedding database and offer complementary views of momentum patterns.