Break, Pullback And Continuation

The S&R indicator is one of the best indicators
It's very useful for reading charts and analyzing prices

What Are The 3 Key Steps With Support & Resistance Levels?

Do you feel overwhelmed when looking at a price chart? Are you sometimes confused by contrary information and signals? Paralysis of analysis is often a common problem for traders… Simply because the price chart offers a wide range of trading ideas. The trick is to focus on setups that offer a positive expectancy in the long term. In this article, you will learn three key ingredients for simplifying your analysis and trades:

Letting price action decide, which is key for any price action strategy.
Focusing on key moments using the BPC concept (break, pullback, and continuation pattern).
Understanding that the best breakouts occur around strong support and resistance.

Now let’s start with how to learn price action trading.

Why Are Support & Resistance Levels Key For Trading?

Support and resistance (S&R) offer traders a short-cut for finding key moments (also called decision zones). Basically, S&R offers a trading edge on the price chart. Why? Because price action in Forex trading is expected to make a critical decision when approaching the support and/or resistance zones:

Break the support and resistance level. This is used within a price action breakout strategy.
Or bounce at the support and resistance level. This is used within price action bounce Forex trading.
This is especially true if the S&R is considered strong (aka more confluence).

Then, traders can trade the bounce or breakout at support and resistance. The main advantage is this:

There is a higher probability to find winning trades at these key S&R levels.

One of the better methods for confirming the bounce or break at S&R is using price action trading... But more about this will be added later in the article. First, let’s offer some practical examples of break and bounces at S&R, before diving into more details.

The image above shows a few practical examples of bounce and breakouts:

The green lines indicate where price action bounced at a support trend line.
The blue box shows a bounce at the 50 moving average.
The green boxes indicate a bounce at the Fibonacci support levels.
The dotted orange trend lines indicate where price action made a bullish breakout (blue arrows).

Support and resistance levels are key within a price action pullback strategy and price action strategy and trading.

Determining Breakout Zones Using Support & Resistance

Support and resistance levels can be determined as follows:

Trend lines and trend channels.
Fibonacci levels.
Tops and bottoms.
Round and quarter price levels.
Price bands and moving averages.
Other price indicators like Ichimoku, envelopes, parabolic, and more.

The more support and resistance levels are located around the same price level, the stronger the support and resistance level becomes. These levels are called POC zones (point of confluence or point of control).

Here is how support and resistance work in relation to price:

Resistance = Price Action Is Below The Key Level

Breakout = price action breaks above the resistance.
Bounce = price action bounces at or around the resistance.

Support = Price Action Is Above The Key Level

Breakout = price action breaks below the support.
Bounce = price action bounces at or around the support.

Explaining support and resistance from A to Z is beyond the scope of today’s article. For a detailed breakdown, check out our special dedicated article.

Understanding Price Action Trading via Candlesticks

Identifying support and resistance (S&R) alone is often not enough for finding good trades. Although more advanced traders might feel confident in trading immediately at the S&R level… However, beginning and intermediate traders are advised not to jump into any trades at the support and resistance… Why? Because correctly assuming that price action will bounce or break the S&R zone is difficult. It takes much more experience to analyze properly... And often traders will get it wrong. The safest and most solid tactic is to use price action to confirm their trading ideas at S&R zones. What does this mean?

A simpler approach is for traders to wait for the price action to make a decision.
Traders can wait for the price to bounce at or break through the support and resistance before committing to a trade.
A candlestick chart is one of the best ways of measuring price action in Forex and trading. Bar charts also work well but line charts do not offer the same details.

Such breakouts and bounces occur on all time frames and instruments:

But the charts with more price movement are usually more reliable.
Also, charts on higher time frames usually offer strong S&R zones and more valuable candlesticks.
Lower time frames can be used but traders need to be more cautious in their setups, take less risk, and aim at closer targets.

A candlestick chart shows vital information about the ongoing battle between buyers and sellers. It provides immediate information about which side is winning. Let‘s check how:

Work With Candle Closes

Always analyze closed candlesticks because open candles are not confirmed and traders do not know how they will close. The information can change anytime when the candle is still open.

Candlestick Close Versus Open

The candlestick close versus open is key:

Bull control: a candle closes above the candle open (green box in the image above)
Bear control: a candle closes below the candle open (orange box).

Candle Close From High or Low

Another factor is how far the candle close is from the candle high or low:

Bull control: a candle close near the candle high (green box).
Bear control: candle close near the candle low (orange box)
Bullish reversal: candle open and close far away from the candle low (called a wick - blue box).
Bearish reversal: candle open and close far away from the candle high (called a wick - red box).