Structure · 7 min read
Support & resistance
Support and resistance are names for prices where the market has repeatedly changed its mind. They are the most widely used ideas in chart reading — and the easiest to fool yourself with.
A definition you can test
Support is a price area where falling prices have stopped and turned up more than once. Resistance is an area where rising prices have stopped and turned down more than once. The key words are “more than once”: one turning point is a swing, not a level.
A practical rule: a level needs at least two separate visits, with price having moved clearly away in between. The more visits, and the further price travelled between them, the more attention the level has probably attracted.
Live chart · Binance spot data. Drag to pan.
Zones, not lines
Turning points rarely land on exactly the same price. If three lows sit at 14.02, 14.10 and 13.95, the honest description is “a zone around 14.0”, not a line at 14.02. Many chart readers use a rectangle rather than a horizontal line for this reason.
A reasonable zone width is related to volatility: a few tenths of an ATR on the timeframe you are using. Too narrow and every level “breaks”; too wide and every level “holds”.
When roles swap
A level that was resistance is sometimes revisited from above after price has moved through it, and behaves like support. This “role reversal” is common enough to watch for, but it is an observation about the past, not a rule the market must follow.
The bias to guard against
Given enough candles, you can find a level almost anywhere. The antidote is to mark levels before you look at what happened next. On Velqorena, scroll back in history, cover the right side of the chart with your hand, draw your levels, then pan forward and see how they did.
Also be wary of levels drawn only on the timeframe you happen to be using. A level that shows up on the 4h and the 1D chart is more meaningful than one visible only on the 5m.
Tools that help
Use the Horizontal line (Alt+H) for single prices and the Rectangle (Alt+B) for zones. Turn on Magnet mode (Alt+M) to snap points exactly to highs and lows. The support retests study shows one objective method in action.
Velqorena articles explain how tools work using past price data. They are not investment advice and do not suggest any trade.