Let's face it, we're in a bear market and will be for the foreseeable future. So if you haven't played stocks to the downside, there's no time like the present to pile into some puts and take advantage of it!

The easiest way to explain technical analysis is to tell you that you will be watching for what's called "technical events." These occur when a significant pattern has formed or a significant price activity has occurred in a financial security.

Technical events highlight price situations that may be worth considering when researching an investment activity, and technical events usually occur when the price of a financial instrument crosses a critical line or threshold.

Examples of technical events include the confirmation of a price, confirmation that a pattern has formed, or confirmation that the price crossed a specific moving average.

Today I'm going to show you two patterns that look very similar but are aimed at helping you to see how a stock's story can literally play out before your eyes!

Symmetrical Continuation Triangle (Bearish)

One of my favorite bearish chart patterns is the Symmetrical Continuation Triangle, which shows two converging trendlines — the lower one is ascending, and the upper one is descending.

The formation occurs because prices are reaching both lower highs and higher lows. The pattern will display two highs touching the upper (descending) trendline and two lows touching the lower (ascending) trendline.

Here's what the pattern looks like:

And here's how it looks on a stock, Southwestern Energy (SWN), that's heading toward those higher lows we mentioned above:

You can see the trading range tightening as the stock continues to drop. And as this is a bearish formation, I expect it to take a very steep tumble once it reaches $27, or the point of the triangle.