Cup handle buy sell

Marks cup-and-handle breakouts; at default settings the buy marker can never draw.

Looks for a cup-and-handle shape on closes over the last 100 bars. The price must touch near the high, drop to near the low, climb back near the high, then hold a channel with matching slopes or a converging triangle for handle_hold bars. The buy test wants a close above the high times (1 + band), but at the default band of 0 that can never be true, because the high already includes the current close.

How to read it

Only buy markers draw, on the candles. There is no line and no pane.
A marker needs the full sequence: a touch of the high, a drop to the low, a return to the high, then a tight channel or triangle that holds for handle_hold bars.
With default settings the chart shows no markers at all.

What it outputs

Buy: Marks the bar where the handle completes and the close is above the 100-bar high times (1 + band). The default band of 0 makes that impossible.
Sell (unused): Never draws. The sell side is hard-wired to nothing.

When it fires

On the bar the channel or triangle has held for handle_hold bars, after a rim, a base and a second rim. The buy also needs the close above the 100-bar high times (1 + band) on that bar, so at band 0 it cannot draw.

Settings

rim_eps: How close the close must be to the 100-bar high to count as a rim touch, as a fraction (0.004 is 0.4%). Wider lets more touches count, so setups start more often. Negative values never match, so no setup can start.
base_eps: How close the close must be to the 100-bar low to count as the cup bottom. Wider lets shallower dips count, so more setups start. Negative values never match, so no setup can start.
handle_hold: How many consecutive bars the channel or triangle shape must hold. Higher waits for a longer tight shape and fires less often; 1 accepts a single bar of shape.
band: Sets the buy line at the 100-bar high times (1 + band). At 0 no close can clear it, so no buy. Negative values put the line under the high, so a close near it fires (-0.002 is within 0.2%). Positive values make the buy harder.
confirm_days: How many consecutive bars the buy test must hold before a marker draws. 1 draws on the first bar. Higher values make a buy very unlikely, because the handle stage lasts about one bar.

Pitfalls

At default band 0 the buy cannot fire, because the 100-bar high includes the current close. The zero events on a month of SPY one-minute bars come from this, not rarity.
The handle stage lasts one bar, so the buy test runs only on the bar the hold count is reached.
Slope thresholds (0.5 percentage points for channels, 0.05% for triangles) are fixed in code, not parameters, and no stage has a time limit.