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Glossary / Market structure

Support and resistance

Definition

Price areas where previous buying or selling stopped a move.

Why it matters

Levels are only useful when defined in advance. Marking them pre-session and journaling reactions makes them testable.

Example

Price stalls at 4,020 three times in two sessions. The fourth test with rising volume is either the strongest break of the week or the cleanest fade.

How to track it in a journal

TradeStack calculates the core performance numbers — win rate, average win and loss, profit factor, expectancy, drawdown and consistency — automatically from imported trades, so support and resistance stops being something you estimate and becomes something you read.

Related terms

Slippage
The difference between your expected fill price and the price you actually get.
Spread
The gap between the best bid and the best ask.
Liquidity
How much size a market can absorb without moving price.
Volatility
How much price moves over a given period.

Keep reading

Trading journal guides
Expectancy, profit factor, drawdown, backtesting and the PDT rule.
Free trading calculators
Position size, risk-reward, expectancy and options profit.
Expectancy calculator
Expected profit per trade from your own numbers.
Broker CSV export guides
Step-by-step exports for Tradovate, NinjaTrader, IBKR and more.
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