Support and resistance

The concept of support and resistance is very important for traders. Basically, support and resistance represent areas where the price action is expected to face obstacles. Let’s study this in detail.  

Support is a price level where the falling price tends to slow down or reverse. This means the price is more likely to "bounce" off this level rather than break through it. However, once the price has passed this level, it is likely to continue dropping until it finds another support level.

Resistance is a price level where the rising price tends to slow down or reverse. The price is more likely to bounce back from this level rather than break through it. However, a break above this level opens the way for further price growth until it finds another resistance level.

How to trade?

Support and resistance allow traders to guide themselves through the market. Once you mark these levels on the chart, you will see the structure of the market and be able to predict the direction of the price’s next steps as well as their size.

The idea is that these levels will most likely stop the price action and make it reverse. As a result, it’s a common approach to open buy trades at support and sell trades at resistance. If you want to get the benefit of trading a trend, then you will buy at support during an uptrend or sell at resistance in a downtrend. If you don’t trade trends, then you still can use support and resistance levels as your entry points and close positions at the next support/resistance levels.

Indeed, support and resistance levels also give a trader a hint where to close a trade. Thus, if you have an open selling position and the price is approaching a support level, you might think about closing your trade. The same thing is with a buy trade, the difference being that after you opened a buying position you need to mind resistance levels.

Support and resistance can be located in every timeframe. Yet, keep in mind that the bigger the timeframe, the more important is a support/resistance level. In addition, despite the fact that we talk about levels here, trading is not a precise science, so you actually need to think about support and resistance as an area. When you’ve identified support or resistance, you need to include a couple of pips around it. This will help you make your trading more accurate.  

How to draw support and resistance lines?

Support and resistance come in different forms. Firstly, there are the diagonal trendlines we explained before. A trendline can connect the price’s highs and limit the trend on the upside. In this case, this trendline is called a resistance line. A trendline can also be drawn through the lows of the price chart and limit the price action on the downside. Such a line is called a support line. Support and resistance lines can be drawn in both uptrends and downtrends. You need at least 2 highs or 2 lows to draw a trendline through them. You can find more information about drawing trendlines.

Support line and resistance line chart

Notice that during an uptrend, the support line is the most important one because if the price breaks below it, the trend will change to a downtrend. During a downtrend, the resistance line is the key one as a break above it would mean a reversal up.

Screenshot_17.png

As the market is constantly moving, it often happens that support and resistance lines and levels switch places. As you can see in the picture above, after the price fell below the support line it started to act as a resistance line.

Support and resistance levels

There are also horizontal support and resistance levels. One of the simplest and most effective ways is to draw them through the previous highs and lows of the price chart:

horizontal support and resistance levels 

Other techniques traders use to identify support and resistance levels are moving averages, Fibonacci levels, pivot points, etc.

Frequently asked questions

  • How to open an FBS account?

    Click the ‘Open account’ button on our website and proceed to the Personal Area. Before you can start trading, pass a profile verification. Confirm your email and phone number, get your ID verified. This procedure guarantees the safety of your funds and identity. Once you are done with all the checks, go to the preferred trading platform, and start trading. 

  • How to start trading?

    If you are 18+ years old, you can join FBS and begin your FX journey. To trade, you need a brokerage account and sufficient knowledge on how assets behave in the financial markets. Start with studying the basics with our free educational materials and creating an FBS account. You may want to test the environment with virtual money with a Demo account. Once you are ready, enter the real market and trade to succeed.

  • How to withdraw the money you earned with FBS?

    The procedure is very straightforward. Go to the Withdrawal page on the website or the Finances section of the FBS Personal Area and access Withdrawal. You can get the earned money via the same payment system that you used for depositing. In case you funded the account via various methods, withdraw your profit via the same methods in the ratio according to the deposited sums.

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