One of the most useful ideas in price action is that support becomes resistance, and resistance becomes support once a level breaks. Master this "role reversal" and your levels get far more powerful.
The core idea
When price breaks through a support or resistance level, that level often flips its role:
- Broken resistance becomes support — price breaks above a ceiling, pulls back to it, and it now acts as a floor.
- Broken support becomes resistance — price breaks below a floor, rallies back to it, and it now caps the move.
Traders call this "polarity" or a "flip" level.
Why it happens
It's about memory and positioning. Traders who missed the breakout wait to buy the retest; those trapped on the wrong side exit at breakeven near the old level. That clustering of orders makes the flipped level matter.
How to trade the retest
This is the heart of the breakout-retest approach:
- Price breaks a level decisively.
- It pulls back to retest the level from the other side.
- If the level holds, you enter in the breakout direction with a tight stop just beyond it.
Fewer false breakouts, a clearer invalidation, and a great risk/reward because your stop is small.
The caveat
Not every break flips cleanly — some levels fail the retest, which simply means the breakout was a trap. That's why the retest holding is the confirmation, and your stop keeps a failure cheap.
A broken level doesn't disappear — it switches sides. The retest is where you find out if the break was real.
Education only — not financial advice.