📊 Price Action·beginner

Resistance

A price level where sellers have historically stepped in to stop the rally and turn price back down.

Resistance is the opposite of support: a price level where supply has historically overwhelmed demand. It shows up as a horizontal ceiling on the chart where price has bounced down multiple times. Like support, resistance is a zone, not a line. And the more times it's tested, the more stops build up above it — meaning when it eventually breaks, the move can be fast and violent as those stops trigger. Broken resistance often becomes new support through role reversal. When price breaks above, everyone who sold at resistance is now losing money; when price retests the level, they buy to get out at break-even, creating a new floor.

Real trade example

USD/JPY 152.00 was a generational resistance tested in 1990 and not broken until 2024. When it finally broke, price rallied 800 pips in 2 months on yen weakness.

Related terms

Support

beginner

A price level where buyers have historically stepped in to stop the decline and turn price back up.

Liquidity Sweep

advanced

When price briefly spikes through a key level to trigger stops, then immediately reverses — engineered by big players to fill orders.

Candlestick

beginner

A single price bar that shows open, high, low, and close for a given time period — the foundation of technical analysis.

Doji

intermediate

A candlestick where the open and close are almost equal — indecision between buyers and sellers.

Hammer

beginner

A candlestick with a small body near the top and a long lower wick — a bullish reversal signal after a downtrend.

Engulfing Candle

intermediate

A candle whose body fully swallows the previous candle's body — a strong reversal signal.

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