Has This Level Been Tested Before? How to Read a Level's History
A line on a chart tells you where. The last four visits tell you whether to trust it. Here's how to count them, and what each pattern of visits usually means.
By Pavel Penev, MScFounder, TradeWize · 10+ years trading the marketsThe short answer
Count the visits. For each time price reached the level, note whether it held or broke, how far it bounced, and whether it poked through on a wick first. A level that has held four times with big bounces is one a lot of money is defending. A level that held once, broke once and was poked through twice is a line on a screen. Same price, different level.
Our support and resistance guide ends on a claim: a level is worth exactly what its history earns. This piece is the how. What to count at each visit, what the patterns of visits mean, and where the trap is, because the most-tested level on the chart is also the one everyone's stop is sitting under.
What to count at each visit
A visit is any time price came within the level's zone. For each one, there are four things to record, and they're the four things the engine behind our chart analyzer scores when it draws a level.
- Did it hold or break? A hold is a reaction away from the level. A break is a close through it that stuck.
- How far did it bounce? A level that produces 15% moves is being defended by more money than one that produces 2% wobbles.
- Was there a poke? A wick through the level that closed back inside is a fakeout, and it counts differently from a clean hold.
- What was the volume? A hold on rising volume is buyers showing up. A hold on falling volume is buyers running out.
The engine turns those into one sentence per level. Something like: the last four times price reached this level it held every time, bouncing 16% on average. That's a level's history in fourteen words, and it's the first thing to read before deciding anything about the fifth visit.
A floor tested four times, read by the tool
Here's a chart where price is falling toward a floor it has bounced from four times. The candles are synthetic, built for this article. The levels, the history line and the read are the engine's, computed the same way our chart analyzer computes them from a screenshot.
What the tool reads on this chart
EXAMPLE is 74 days into a downtrend, coiling inside a falling wedge. $71.99 ends the wedge, $73.89 resumes the rise.
- Formation state:
- Still forming.
- Decides above:
- $73.89 (the falling wedge)
- Decides below:
- $71.99 (the falling wedge)
- Level history:
- The last four times price reached $73.78 it held three times, bouncing 3.6% on average, and broke through once.
- Level history:
- The last four times price reached $70.11 it held every time, bouncing 16% on average.
A synthetic chart, built for this article and read by the same engine that reads a screenshot on /analyze. No AI wrote this read; it is computed from the candles.
The lower horizontal line is the floor. The level-history line under the chart is the record: the last four times price reached it, it held every time, with double-digit bounces. The engine also draws the downtrend's line and reads a small wedge coiling near the right edge; the floor is what this article is about.
Read the history line first. Four visits, four holds, big bounces. That's a level with a record. Now look at the shape of the last two visits on the chart: the bounces are getting smaller and the pullbacks between them are getting shorter. Four holds is the history. Shrinking bounces is the trend of the history, and it's the more useful of the two.
What each pattern of visits usually means
| The record | What's probably going on | The next visit |
|---|---|---|
| Held every time, bounces the same size or bigger | Buyers keep showing up with the same conviction | Likely to hold. A stop just past it is well placed |
| Held every time, bounces shrinking | The buyers are getting tired, or the sellers more patient | Higher chance of a break. Expect a fakeout first |
| Held, then poked through on a wick, then held again | Stops under the level got run and the level survived | Still valid, and slightly lower than you drew it |
| Broke once, then held on the retest from the other side | The level changed sides and passed its first test in its new role | Trust it in the new role |
| Held once, broke twice | Nobody's defending this price any more | Stop drawing it |
None of these is a prediction. Each is a base rate, and the base rate is what you're trading when you put a stop just past a level.
Learn it by doing
Reading about it is one thing — it clicks when you do it. Learn it hands-on with free, interactive lessons on TradeWize.
Try the free lesson →The trap: the more tested, the more stops
Here's the part that surprises people. A level that's held four times is a level the whole market can see, and a level the whole market can see has everyone's stop just under it. That pile of stops is a pile of market sell orders waiting to fire. So the fifth visit to a famous level often goes a little further than the first four did: through the level, into the stops, and then back above it once they're gone.
That's a poke, not a break, and the difference is the close. A well-tested level that gets closed through and reclaimed within a bar or two has just done what well-tested levels do. Our piece on stop-loss hunting covers the research behind the clustering; the practical rule is that a stop should sit past where the stops are, not among them.
Where the numbers come from
Counting visits by eye works on a clean daily chart and gets hard fast on anything busier. The engine does it from the candle data: it finds the swings, groups the ones that line up into a zone, and then walks forward through every bar to record each reaction at that zone, the bounce size, and whether a wick or a close went through. Each level it draws carries that record, and the record is what decides whether the level gets drawn at all.
That's the habit worth copying even without the tool. Don't draw a level because it looks right. Draw it because you can list what happened the last three times price got there.
How to read a level's history, step by step
- Zoom out far enough to see every visit to the level, not just the last two.
- For each visit, write down: held or broke, the bounce size, and whether a wick poked through first.
- Look at the trend of the bounces. Same or bigger means the defence is intact. Shrinking means it's fading.
- Check where the last visit's wick went. That's where the stops are, and yours should be past it.
- Decide what a break would look like before it happens: a close through the far edge of the zone, held for a bar or two. Anything less is a poke.
The one-line version
A level is its record. Count the holds, the breaks, the pokes and the bounce sizes, watch which way the bounces are trending, and put the stop past the wicks rather than among them.
How do you know if a support level has been tested?
Look left. Every time price reached the level's zone is a test. Count how many times it held, how many times it broke, how far it bounced each time, and whether it poked through on a wick first. The chart analyzer prints that record as one sentence for each level it draws.
Is a level stronger the more times it's tested?
Usually, up to a point. Repeated holds show real defence. But each test also stacks more stop orders just past the level, and bounces that shrink with each test are the defence fading. A level tested many times with shrinking bounces is closer to breaking than one tested twice with big ones.
What does it mean when a level is tested and holds?
Enough buyers, at support, or sellers, at resistance, stepped in at that price to turn the market. The bigger the bounce and the higher the volume on the hold, the more conviction that shows. The record of those holds is what makes the level worth trading.
Why does price go slightly through a level before bouncing?
Stop-loss orders cluster just past obvious levels and become market orders when touched. A push through the level fires them, which carries price a little further than the level itself before the buyers who wanted the level step in. That's a poke, and it counts as a hold if the bar closes back inside.
How far should a stop be from a tested level?
Past the wicks of the previous visits, not just past the line. If the last three visits poked $1 through the level before bouncing, a stop 50 cents past it will be hit by the next poke. Stops go where the stops aren't.
Can an AI count how many times a level has held?
Yes. Our free chart analyzer scores each level from the real candles, records every visit, and prints how many times it held, how many times it broke, and the average bounce. It never tells you what to buy or sell; it tells you the level's record so you can decide what it's worth.
What's the record on your level?
Upload the screenshot or type the ticker. The chart analyzer scores the levels from the real candles and prints what happened the last few times price reached each one. Free, no account, one read a week. It reads the record; the trade is yours.