The Four Wyckoff Families: Accumulation, Distribution, Reaccumulation, Redistribution

Four families

• Accumulation: a bottom. Sideways after a decline, before markup.
• Distribution: a top. Sideways after a rise, before markdown.
• Reaccumulation: a pause inside an uptrend, then continuation up.
• Redistribution: a pause inside a downtrend, then continuation down.

The Wyckoff Phase Calculator uses exactly these four names, so a reading there maps straight onto this lesson.

Shapes the course author groups under each

Accumulation: the classic range with a spring; a double bottom that rounds into a cup and handle; an inverse head and shoulders whose head is the spring; a falling wedge that breaks up and backtests.

Distribution: several failed pushes at resistance then a break down; a double top, a dead-cat bounce, then lower; a head and shoulders that breaks its neckline; a blow-off top, sideways, then down.

Reaccumulation: the four shapes from the previous lesson.

Redistribution: the mirror of reaccumulation, drawn in a bear market.

The course author keeps a packet of sixteen hand-drawn schematics for these. That packet is not part of this course; the shapes above are described in words on purpose, because you will never meet a textbook schematic on a real chart. You match a chart to a family and a phase, not to a drawing.

How to use the families

1. Match the chart to a family by what came before: a fall or a rise, and whether the bigger trend is still intact.
2. Locate the phase: stopping action (A), building the cause (B), the test (C), the breakout (D), the trend (E). The calculator labels these on real candles.
3. Only then look for an entry with the averages and the Fibonacci pocket.
4. Expect no perfect match. A range that is "mostly accumulation with a messy spring" is a normal real-world read.

In the lab

Open the Technical Analysis page and read the calculator on BTC at 1W, then 1D. Note the family, the phase, the events and the confidence. Then pick the altcoin on your watchlist that looks most like a range and do the same. In your journal, write one sentence on which family you would bet on and what would prove you wrong.