support
A price area where buyers stepped in before, so a fall often slows or turns there.
Support is a price area where buying has previously appeared and a falling price has slowed or turned. It is an area to observe, rather than an exact line that must hold.
Many participants may watch similar past lows, but their actions can differ. Price can pause near support, pass through it, or move away and later return. A chart alone cannot establish which outcome will occur.
Example
Bluefin Energy fell to about $30 on two separate occasions, then closed near $32 and $31. A learner marks $30–$31 as a possible support area, a width of $1. If a later price is $30.50, it is inside that area because $30 ≤ $30.50 ≤ $31. This is a way to describe previous behavior; it does not prove the price will turn upward again.
Common mistakes
- Drawing support as a precise penny-perfect line. Past reactions usually form an area.
- Assuming support must hold. Price can move below the area.
- Choosing the area after seeing the outcome. Mark observations consistently to reduce hindsight bias.
- Treating a chart level as a money-making signal. Most people who trade lose money.
Learn it in the course
- Support, resistance and breakouts · Mark the prices where the market turned before, and see why a breakout can be real or a trap, and what a level can and cannot tell you.
- Case: mark up a chart and write the plan · Mark the trend and the levels on a Pebble chart, then write when you would enter, where the stop goes and when you stay out, without forecasting.
- Case: compare two trade lists · Two journals, two styles: compare expectancy after costs, drawdown, sample size and discipline, then say which plan is worth continuing and what would change your mind.