The 7 Types of Support and Resistance You Need to Know

By Nial Fuller in Forex Trading Strategies Last updated on September 18th, 2017 | 11 Comments

Markets ebb and flow; they go up, they come down and they move sideways. The primary ways we make sense of these movements are analyzing the price action as well as the levels in the market where price bounced higher or rotated lower, we call these levels support and resistance.

Support and resistance levels form the foundation of technical analysis and they help us build a framework from which we can understand the market. For price action traders, support and resistance levels help us plan our stop loss placements and profit targets, but perhaps more importantly, these levels give us a way to make sense of the market in terms of what it has done, what it is doing and what it might do next.
As I teach in many of my lessons, my overall trading approach can be summed up by the acronym T.L.S or Trend – Level – Signal. This lesson is primarily about the L (levels), I discuss the Trend and Signal portion of T.L.S. in other lessons, here are a couple:
A Complete Guide to Trend Trading
Price Action Signals
In this lesson, we will not just be showing you how to draw support and resistance levels, but we will delve deeper and discuss how to use these levels to find high-probability trades in range-bound markets, determine trends, define risk & targets and more. I hope you enjoy this lesson and refer back to it often, as it is jam-packed with helpful explanations and examples…

The 7 Most Important Types of Support and Resistance & How to Use Them…

Traditional swing highs and lows

Perhaps the most important support and resistance levels are traditional swing highs and lows. These are levels that we find by zooming out to a longer time frame, typically the weekly chart or possibly even monthly. This is where we get a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the market and the major turning points within it. What we want to do is simply identify the obvious levels that price either reversed higher or lower at and draw horizontal lines at them. These levels do not have to be ‘exact’, they may intersect price bars or they may be zones rather than exact levels. You can consider this the first step in regards to support and resistance levels and it’s the first thing you should do when analyzing any chart.
Notice the ‘bird’s eye view’ we get by zooming out to the weekly time frame. Here we can identify major support and resistance levels, trends and trading ranges…

Next, we want to zoom down a time frame, to the daily chart, to ‘fine tune’ our levels some more. The daily chart is the primary time frame for finding trade setups, so it’s important we understand the broader picture on the weekly chart but also that we have identified the shorter-term levels on the daily. I have a good video on this topic of mapping the market from higher time frames to lower, be sure to check it out. One key point to remember is that when you zoom into the daily or even the 4 hour or 1 hour, you always leave the higher time frame levels on your chart as they are very important.
Notice, by zooming into the daily chart from the weekly example above, some of the same weekly levels are still in play as well as some new shorter-term daily chart levels we couldn’t really see on the weekly…

Stepping swing point levels in trends

Have you heard the saying “Old support becomes new resistance and old resistance becomes new support”? This is referring to the phenomenon of a market making higher highs and higher lows or lower highs and lower lows, in an up or downtrend. We should mark these ‘stepping’ levels as they form, then when the market breaks down or up through them we can look to trade on retracements back to those levels, also known as trading pull backs. This also gives us a way to map the trend of a market – when you see this stepping phenomenon you know you have a solid trend in place.
These levels are good entry points as well as points to define risk or stop loss points. You can place your stop loss on other side of these levels.
For example, in the chart image below, we see a clear downtrend in place. As price broke down past the previous support level, that level ‘flipped’ to resistance levels that act as high-probability entry levels if price retraces back up to them.

Swing point levels as containment and risk management

We can look to sell or buy at swing points even if they are not part of a trend. Markets spend much of their time consolidating and in trading ranges, so we should be able to find trades within those market conditions, not only in trends.
We can simply use the most recent swing high or low as a risk point to define our next trade, which you can see in the chart example below.
In the image below, notice that price broke lower, down through support, then it stayed contained under that level, which was then acting as resistance. We could look to sell at that level or just below if price stayed contained below it. In this way, that level is defining where we will look to take our next trade and we know if price moves beyond that level our trade idea is invalid, so placing our stop loss just beyond that level is obvious. We can also use recent swing points as profit targets. In the example below, notice how we could use the recent swing lows as profit targets.

Dynamic support and resistance levels

Next, let’s talking about dynamic support and resistance levels. What I mean by dynamic is moving levels, in other words, moving averages. A moving average moves up or down according to what price is doing, and you can set it to consider a certain number of bars or time periods.
My personal favorites are the 21 and 50 period EMA or exponential moving averages. I like to use them on the daily chart time frame mostly, but they can also be useful on the weekly charts. These ema’s are good for quickly identifying the trend of the market and for joining that trend. We can watch for price to test the moving average after breaking above or below it, and then look to enter at or near that moving average. Ideally, the market will have proven itself by testing the level and bouncing previously, then you can look to enter on that second retrace.
Here is an example of the 50 period EMA being used to identify a downtrend as well as find entry points within it. Ideally, we will look for a 1 hour, 4 hour or daily chart price action sell signal as price nears or hits that level on a retrace back up to it in a downtrend like this…

The 21 period EMA can be used in a similar manner as we see below. Keep in mind, the shorter the EMA period the more frequently price will interact with the EMA. So, in a less volatile market you may wish to use a shorter period ema like the 21 rather than a longer one like the 50.

50% Retracement levels

Whilst I don’t use traditional Fibonacci retracements and all their many extension levels, there is a proven phenomenon that over time, markets often hold the halfway point of a swing (circa 50 to 55% area), where market makes giant moves, retraces, then bounces in original direction. This is partly a self-fulfilling event and partly just a result of normal market dynamics. To learn more, checkout this lesson on How I Trade 50% Retracements.
Look at this example chart showing a large up move that retraced approximately to the 50% level on two different occasions, providing a very high-probability entry scenario, especially on the second bounce…

Trading range support and resistance levels

Trading range support and resistance levels can provide many high-probability entry opportunities for the savvy price action trader. The main idea is to first identify a trading range, which is basically just price bouncing between two parallel levels in the market, and then look for price action signals at those levels or look to fade the level on a blind entry. By fade the level, I mean if the market is moving up and at the key resistance of the range, look trade the opposite way, i.e. sell. Or, you look to buy the support of the range. You can literally do this until price clearly breaks and closes outside of the range. This is a MUCH better approach than the one most traders take in trading ranges – trying to predict the breakout before it happens and constantly getting whipsawed as price reverses back into the range.
Note, in the example image below, we had a large trading range as price was clearly oscillating between resistance and support. We could have entered on the second test of resistance (short) or on the second test of support (long) either blindly or on a price action signal like the pin bar signals we see at the support below.

Event area support and resistance

The final type of support or resistance we are going to discuss today is event areas. Event areas are a proprietary form of support and resistance that I expand on in detail in my price action trading course, but, for now, let’s make sure you have a good basic understanding of them.
Event areas are key levels in the market where a major price action event occurred. This can be a big reversal or clear price action signal either of which led to a strong directional move.
In the example chart below, you can see a clear event level that was formed after a strong bearish reversal bar on the weekly chart (there was also a large daily chart bearish pin bar there). As price approached that level on a retrace some months later, we would have wanted to be sure to have that level on our charts as it was a strong level to look to sell at either on a blind entry or on a 1 hour, 4 hour or daily chart sell signal.

Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed this support and resistance tutorial. We have gone over the major types of support and resistance and how I use them as indications of market condition (trending or range bound), levels to look to buy or sell from, levels to define risk and as a framework to understand what the market has done, what it is doing and what it might do next. When you combine a solid understanding of support and resistance levels with price action and market trends, you have the triumvirate of trading: T.L.S, which you can learn much more about in my Price Action Trading Course.
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How To Draw Support and Resistance Levels Like A Professional

By Nial Fuller in Forex Trading Strategies on August 11th, 2012 | 97 Comments

In my daily Forex commentary each day, I draw in the key levels of support and resistance that I feel are the most significant in the current market environment. It’s something that I’ve done for so long it really only takes me a few minutes to do now, it really is a very logical and simple task for me and it can be for you too.
Many traders make the process of drawing support and resistance levels a lot more difficult than it needs to be. After you have a general idea of how I draw my support and resistance levels, you should have no problem using that knowledge as a guideline to draw the levels yourself. We get tons of emails each week from traders asking how to properly draw support and resistance levels on their charts. Also, we get emails with chart attachments from traders who are clearly drawing far too many levels on the charts, thus complicating the process of price action trading and confusing themselves as well.
Today’s lesson is going to be a tutorial of how I draw my levels in the market. Basically, I’m going to take you guys on a ride through my brain (scary I know) as I decide where to draw support and resistance levels on some real-time daily charts. You can use this lesson as a reference until you feel comfortable enough drawing the levels on your own. Also, it will help you to make your own commentary each day of your favorite markets; writing down your analysis rather than keeping it all in your head is a good way to stay on track and make sure you have a clear plan for the week and day ahead. To get started, let’s clear up a few common myths about drawing support and resistance levels…
Common myths about drawing support and resistance levels:
Myth 1: You should draw every level you can find on your charts – Many traders fall into this trap, they end up taking an hour to draw on every little level they can find. What they end up with is a really messy chart that basically does more harm than good. You need to learn to draw only the significant levels on your charts, then you’ll have a useful framework to work from.
Myth 2: Your S/R (support and resistance) levels should always be drawn across the exact highs or lows of price bars – This is perhaps the biggest myth that traders have about drawing levels on their charts. Often times, support and resistance are more “zones” than exact “levels”, sometimes you will have a key level that is indeed an exact level, but more often than not we are going to be drawing our support and resistance lines midway through bar tails or even through the body of a bar sometimes. Point being, you don’t always have to draw the level exactly through the high or low of the bar. Note: if you are totally new and confused by some of the lingo here, please take some time to go over this candlestick tutorial before moving on.
Myth 3: You should go back really far in time with your levels – Unless you are a long-term buy-and-hold investor right now, you don’t need to go back more than about 8 months when drawing your levels. If you look at our free forex commentary you can see we really only focus on the last 3 to 6 months when drawing in the daily levels, and that goes for my own personal trading too. I am not sitting there trying to draw in levels from the last 5 years like some traders…you are wasting your time if you’re doing this.
OK! Now that we’ve cleared up those common myths about drawing S/R levels on your charts, let’s move on to some “meat”:
How I draw support and resistance levels on my charts:
Below are examples of how I would draw the relevant support and resistance levels on some of the major Forex pairs, Gold, Crude Oil and Dow Futures as they stand at the time of this writing. Above each chart is a brief explanation of why I drew the levels where I did.
Example 1: EURUSD DAILY CHART
Here we are looking at the current euro / dollar daily chart. You’ll note the red lines highlight the longer-term or “key” levels and the blue lines highlight the shorter-term or “near-term” levels. This is how all the examples will be in this lesson and hopefully it will make it easier for you to differentiate between what I often refer to as “key” levels from shorter-term levels that aren’t quite as significant.
In this example, you can see this market is clearly in a trading range right now between about 1.3140-70 resistance and 1.2830 support. Those are what I would call the “key levels” on this current daily EURUSD chart. Within the range, we have some shorter-term levels that are still significant albeit less so than the key levels just discussed. Of special note are the two shorter-term resistance levels marked on the chart below. You will see that the one near 1.3070 is hitting a bar high from October 5^th, but also it’s going through the bodies and middle of the tails of the bars from October 17^th – 23^rd. This brings up a good point…a support or resistance level can be significant even if it isn’t exactly touching bar highs and lows. This is also seen at the key resistance of the range, note how the line through 1.3140 is not touching the exact highs on September 14^th and 17^th at 1.3171…this brings up the point that sometimes support or resistance is more of a “zone” than a strict / exact level. In this case the resistance of the current range is really a small zone of resistance from 1.3140 to about 1.3171 (more on support / resistance “zones” soon).
Also of note, there was an inside bar on October 18^th, and after the market broke down from that inside bar it tried to rotate back up to about where it broke down at, and this breakdown level acted as resistance and held the market off from advancing further, and then as we can see the market has since fallen away from that level. These are some of the more subtle things you need to learn about when drawing in your levels…especially shorter-term levels; that inside bar breakdown point held as a resistance, and often inside bar breakout points will act as support or resistance, even if it’s just for the short-term.

Example 2: GBPUSD DAILY CHART
Here’s a good exercise for you to work on: When marking support and resistance levels on your charts, mark the longer-term “key” levels first and then draw the shorter-term levels. This will work to give you a framework for the current market conditions and gives your analysis some routine as well.
One of the things I often write about is support or resistance “zones”, as often a support or resistance is not really an exact level but more of a zone. In the example below, we can see a very good example of a resistance zone that occurs between about 1.6270 and 1.6310.
“Key” support or resistance levels are generally levels that price rejected forcefully and that gave rise to a significant move up or down, or they can be levels that have contained or supported price many times. Whereas, shorter-term levels give rise to smaller movements and tend to break easier. We can see good examples of both in the GBPUSD daily chart below:

Example 3: AUDUSD DAILY CHART
In this example we are looking at the AUDUSD daily chart and we can see currently the market is in a large trading range between about 1.0612 and 1.0175. We classify 1.0612 as “key resistance” since it has caused significant turning points in the market and held on the last two tests. Similarly, 1.0175 is “key support” because it has led to significant turning points in the market and held on about the last 4 tests. The shorter-term level through 1.0410 is clearly significant, but again it’s not “quite” as significant as the two levels just mentioned. As you can see, some of drawing in your levels and deciding which is more important than the other can be left up to your own interpretation, but at the same time you should have a logical line of reasoning such as “this level has held price more times”, or “that level created a larger move”, etc.

Example 4: USDJPY DAILY CHART
In the USDJPY example below, we are looking at all “key levels” because I did not see any that I considered to be short-term levels. The reason being, every level I’ve drawn in has created a significant turning point. The USDJPY most recently has been breaking higher, and if the resistance near 80.37 gives way we will likely see another leg higher.
Of special note in this chart are the bar tails or wicks. Note how some of the levels are not drawn exactly at the bar highs or lows but rather through the middle portion of the tail. This is important, and it’s one of the myths I mentioned at the start of this lesson; you don’t always have to draw your S/R levels exactly at a bar high or low. In fact, it’s more important to have a lot of tails touching a level than it is to have a level exactly at two or three bar highs or lows. An example of this is the level at 78.79 in the chart below; note how I drew it through as many bar tails (or wicks) that I could, rather than moving it further up and just hitting the exact highs of a couple bars. Drawing your levels in this manner gives you a better reference point to look for signals from since you are getting closer to the mean or average turning point price in the market, so it’s basically a higher-probability level than a level that’s further out but exactly at a bar high or low. That’s not to say you will never draw S/R levels at exact highs or lows, because you will, a lot, but it just means you don’t always have to draw them that way and won’t always want to.

Example 5: NZDUSD DAILY CHART
In the NZDUSD chart below we want to take note of what I refer to as a “value area”. Now, what I mean by “value area” is basically just an area where it’s obvious that price “likes” to be. This is essentially just another word for consolidation, since an area of consolidation on a chart is essentially where a market has found “fair value”. These value areas typically act as support or resistance zones, and this means when price retraces back to them you can watch for price action trading strategies forming at them. You will also sometimes have existing support or resistance levels that basically run right through the center of a value area, showing about the middle of the value area, and we can see this clearly by the blue line in the chart below. In this specific NZDUSD example that blue value line would be a good support to watch for buy signals if price rotates lower soon.

Example 6: USDCAD DAILY CHART
The USDCAD daily chart below shows us a good example of the “value” concept that I discussed in the last example. Note how price formed that area of consolidation or “value” marked on the chart below, and then later price retraced back up to it and found resistance exactly at the center of the value near 0.9883 on October 3rd. Then, after price finally broke back above that value level it formed a price action setup after it retraced back down to it, as we can see an inside pin bar combo setup formed showing rejection of that same level.
So, here’s a very simple strategy for you; wait for a key level to break, then wait for price to retrace back to it and look for a price action setup entry trigger to form near the breakout level in the direction of the initial breakout.

Example 7: EURJPY DAILY CHART
We can see in the EURJPY chart below that it’s been in an uptrend since about the end of July. This uptrend has had some pretty large counter-trend retraces, which of course we need to mark with levels. We can see in the chart below the support levels and zones left behind by the different points in the market were the retrace ended and the uptrend resumed. Also, in a trending market like this, we can watch the previous swing points for price action signals as the market retraces back to them. For example, in an uptrend we can look for price action entries at the previous resistance / swing points in the market which turn into support after price breaks up past them. We can see a clear example of this in the chart below with the recent pin bar trading strategy that formed at the shorter-term support through 102.50 area, note that this level was previous resistance.

Example 8: XAUUSD DAILY CHART
In the Gold chart below, you can see I’ve gone back about 8 months in drawing in my long-term levels. This is about the farthest back I typically go when drawing in my levels on the daily charts. Again, longer-term “key levels” are those levels that clearly caused a significant change of direction in price and / or held strong on multiple tests across time. Shorter-term levels are those that caused less significant price direction changes and may be “newer” levels. You don’t have to get carried away drawing in too many of the shorter-term levels though, just use common sense and decide which are the most obvious and draw those in. If you put too many support and resistance levels on your charts you’ll end up with a messy chart that just confuses you and might even cause you not to trade because you think there are too many levels for the market to have to move through.
This brings me to a very important point you should remember: In an up-trending market, resistance levels will often break, and in a down-trending market support levels will often break. I say that because I get a lot of emails from traders telling me they can’t get a proper 1:2 or more risk reward ratio because there are too many support or resistance levels in the way. Well, you have to look at the market context that your trade setup has formed in and use some common sense and discretion…not every little level you find is significant.

Example 9: DJ30 DAILY CHART
In the Dow Jones futures chart below, we can see the current picture of key levels that are relevant for this market. Of special note, we can see how consistently these key levels hold as price retraces back to them. Knowing that price often bounces or repels from key levels is a very valuable piece of information. Indeed, a big portion of my trading theory revolves around waiting patiently for an obvious price action setup to form at a key chart level as the market retraces back to it. If you observe this chart for a few minutes, you’ll begin to see how accurate these levels are in rejecting, it really is uncanny.

Example 10: WTI DAILY CHART
In the example below, we are looking at the current Crude Oil chart. This chart shows us a very important lesson. Note the pin bar marked on the chart below, it was an obvious pin bar that showed forceful rejection of a key resistance level, and then the market chopped around about 6 days before finally moving lower. The most obvious stop loss placement on that pin bar would have been just above its high which was also the key resistance through $93.65 area. If you enter an obvious price action setup like that and you’ve placed your stop loss at a logical spot in-line with the existing market structure, there’s no reason to panic if the market moves against you and almost stops you out. This exact scenario was very likely in this Crude oil pin bar setup, and I know some traders who panicked when price moved against them. Had they just stayed in the market, their initial stops just above the key resistance would not have been hit and they would have made a killing. Lesson: trust your stops if you’ve placed them beyond a key support or resistance level or in another logical place.

Conclusion:
I hope you now have a better idea of how I draw support and resistance levels on my charts and why I draw them where I do. I suggest you try drawing the relevant levels on your charts now according to what you’ve learned in today’s lesson. Also, follow my daily Forex commentary for a good daily example of how I draw the levels on a major market each day.
Determining where to draw your support and resistance levels is really not as difficult as many traders make it out to be. When in doubt, slow down and take a step back, ask yourself if a level your about to put on your chart makes sense and why. If it makes logical sense you should be able to easily explain why to someone who has no trading experience. For example, you might say “This level is important because it clearly caused price to make a significant change of direction recently”. If you just take a logical approach to drawing in your support and resistance levels you will save yourself a lot of time and frustration in the end. Don’t be one of those traders with so many lines on their charts you can’t figure out what’s happening. If you would like more help with drawing support and resistance levels and how to use them in combination with price action strategies, checkout my Forex price action trading course for more in-depth instruction.

About Nial Fuller

Nial Fuller is a Professional Trader & Author who is considered ‘The Authority’ on Price Action Trading. He has a monthly readership of 250,000+ traders and has taught 20,000+ students since 2008. Checkout Nial's Professional Forex Course here.