I will discuss the two most popular breakout entries; Support and Resistance Breakouts and Trend Line Breakouts.
Support and Resistance Breakouts

Once in a while I hear someone say that breakout trading worked best in the late 90's in the stock market. Well, someone who learned to trade in the late 90's and who does not understand breakouts might say that. In those days, you could buy anything at almost any time and make money. Today, breakout trading is where you see most of the money being made in Forex trading by those who truly understand the structure behind a true breakout getting paid from those who don't.

The chart above is the EURUSD. Notice the horizontal resistance line and let's work left to right in our understanding of what's really happening behind these candles in the chart. The first circled pivot high on the left becomes that pivot high because supply in this market greatly exceeds demand at that price level. When price reaches the line, some of the sellers that make up that supply get to sell but there is still much more supply than demand so price has to fall. The drop from that first circled area is significant as we would expect. The next time price revisits that level, it declines again but this time, the decline is shallow compared to the prior visit. This is because each time you revisit the level, more sellers that make up that supply get to sell so the supply and demand equation is becoming more in balance. The analogy here is the chopping down of a tree (not a great example, I know). With each chop, you are removing mass from the tree and therefore, the tree is more and more likely to fall with each chop. In trading, the mass is the supply and demand. Moving left to right, price comes back to that level a third time and falls but again, the decline is shallow suggesting that there are simply not many sellers at that level remaining. Next, price revisits that level a fourth time but this time, instead of declining from that level, it bases sideways suggesting there are no longer more sellers than buyers. This is when you get ready to buy because in Forex trading (and any other market for that matter), price is likely to move higher. One would feel comfortable taking a low risk entry on a breakout here as the objective price action tells us that there are simply few sellers if any left at that price level. This is a trade we take in the Forex Trader Part 1 and 2 classes all the time. This is also a trade you will see taken very often in our Extended Learning Track (XLT) – Forex Trading class . Does every trade work? Of course not, that's trading. This is why it is so important to understand what is driving the movement of these candles. This in turn helps you understand the structure of a breakout. For shorting, we would just do the opposite of what I am suggesting here. If you want to see an example of a shorting opportunity just like this one, print this page out and turn it upside down.


The Trend Line Breakout

Trend line breakouts and breakdowns are a very popular entry in Forex and other markets. Much of the time, this is the only type of entry a student will practice in class all week long because they become comfortable with it as it is simple to understand and can produce some strong moves for a trader.

Here we have a steep uptrend as shown by the price action and our uptrend line. Instead of guessing as to where this dramatic advance in price might end or at what price level is all the supply, we can simply draw an uptrend line by connecting the pivot lows and look to sell short on a breakout (breakdown in this case) of that line. As in the last example, a natural target can be the origin of that rally in price as shown by the dashed red horizontal line on the bottom of this chart.
Keep in mind that the most important part of trading is managing risk properly. We focus on this extensively in class. The focus of this piece was to help with entries as that is the beginning of a good risk averse strategy. The breakout entries discussed are equally appropriate in any and all markets so don't think this is just for Forex. Never forget, whether the candles on a screen represent a chart of stocks, futures, Forex, options, football trading cards, rare coins, or anything traded… They are all just people and price. We would quantify a breakout in price the same way in any and all of these markets. If you are watching the buying and selling of a David Beckham rookie card and you see that the last one available at the current price level just sold, what is about to happen to price?

This again is a chart of the EURUSD. The down trend line is drawn once we have two points on a chart which is what is always required when drawing trend lines. Once we have this, we simply draw the line and wait for price to breakout above the line for a long entry. The logic here is that price is trending down because it is at price levels where supply exceeds demand. We want to buy this market when it reaches a price level where demand exceeds supply (more buyers than sellers). Instead of trying to guess at where this might be, the price action on the chart will tell us this if we just wait and watch. When price eventually breaks out above that down trend line, it happens because it has reached a price level where there are more willing buyers (demand) than sellers (supply). This is where we would want to take a low risk entry and buy. While there are many profit taking targets that we cover in class, one logical target for profit is the origin of the decline in price that started the whole downtrend in the first place. This is shown as the dashed red line on the chart above.

Trading with Trendlines

Trading these lines (trendlines) can be very profitable, and you can do away with indicators if you follow a few simple rules...

1. The steeper the line the shorter it lasts, keep your stops tight if it moves away quickly. Keep your stops just above (resistance) or below (support) the line.

2. The price will always move back towards the support or resistance to test it, if there’s been a sizeable move, wait for the consolidation to bring it back to the line, then trade.

2. You need at least three touches (or points in a line) to confirm that it is a support or resistance level. Two is not enough. If the price action moves away fast from the line connected by these points it’s probably the dying gasp, but don’t trade until you hit that line again.

3. A good way to choose an entry is to look for an established line and follow it up with sell orders a few pips below (support) or buy orders above the line (resistance) in the opposite direction.

4. If a “trend” is older and you're not sure if it's going to break or not, wait till you're on the line and then straddle it, that way you can get into an older move. I wouldn’t recommend this though; rather wait for a change in direction. Once you’re into the rhythm you’ll almost always have an open position.

5. If you’re not sure phase in your trades, add to your position every ten or twenty pips.

6. Breaks off support and resistance are generally confirmed by big bars or a big bar, so if you see one on a line you know the “trend” has probably changed.

7. Price does not like support or resistance levels. It mostly tests them and then moves away quickly. You’ll rarely find much price action in the vicinity of the line. If price is hanging around a support or resistance level, it’s likely to break in the opposite direction.

8. If the market is moving up you only trade the support line, if down you only trade the resistance line...

SUPPORT AND RESISTANCE TRADING

Resistance is any part at which the market stopped going up and turned down
Support is any part at which the market stopped going down and turned up
An uptrend is a series of rising peaks and troughs
A downtrend shows a series of descending peaks and troughs.
A sideways trend is a series of horizontal peaks and troughs, with prices moving within a range, failing to make new highs at the top of the price range and failing to make new lows at the bottom of the price range
Role Reversal
One of the most interesting phenomena regarding support and resistance occurs when the price is finally able go above and beyond an identified support or resistance level.
]When this happens and a previous trough is broken it is not uncommon to see this previous level of support change its role and become a new area of short-term resistance.
The opposite of this process occurs when the price breaks above resistance or previous peak.,this area now becomes a new area of short term support.


Lets take a look at a SIDEWAYS TREND (commonly known as ranging)

Look at charts (any) see how the price travels between its high and low and each time fails to make a new high or low, eventually a breakout of the low takes place ,notice the retest of the low after the breakout.

In the next part we will take a look at ROLE REVERSAL and how S/R works with REVERSALS .
In later parts we will look at the relationship between the area on the charts that we have identified as S/R levels and see how they confirm each other on the higher timeframes.
We will look at how far the price can move into its previous range.
Entry techniques for the different types of trend.
Where to place stop loss using our s/r lines and most importantly where to place our profit targets.

REMEMBER

BUYERS ENTER THE MARKET AT SUPPORT AND TAKE CONTROL FROM THE SELLERS
SELLERS ENTER THE MARKET AT RESISTANCE AND TAKE CONTROL FROM THE BUYERS

***

A break out is one way to trade s/r , there are other situations that we can use s/r ,what about reversals ,what about trend continuation .

eg. the market pulls back on the 60m chart to form a top but when you check the 4hr chart and that top is a resistance and the daily trend is down then you know the trend is about to continue.

Its a common misconception that unless a s/r level is broken we are in a range.

eg. price on a 60m chart forms a rising double bottom that means a low and then a higher low ,on the 240 chart that bottom is clearly a support a line,
the daily is showing a series of higher highs and higher lows with the area around the current price as clearly being a retest of a previous peak(role reversal).

BUYERS ENTER THE MARKET AT SUPPORT AND TAKE CONTROL FROM THE SELLERS
SELLERS ENTER THE MARKET AT RESISTANCE AND TAKE CONTROL FROM THE BUYERS

Its important to understand the relationship between timeframes to be able to use s/r effectively.