False Breakout Strategy: A Simple Yet Powerful Approach

by Justin Bennett  · 

December 13, 2022

by Justin Bennett  · 

December 13, 2022

by Justin Bennett  · 

December 13, 2022


False breakout strategy for Forex traders

Consider the following scenario.

You’ve had EURUSD on your watch list for weeks. More specifically, you’ve been waiting for a break below a key support level to take advantage of the selloff that’s sure to follow.

After three weeks of practicing saint-like patience and unshakable discipline, the Euro finally sells off against the US dollar and closes below support.

The wait is over!

You open your trading platform, enter the necessary details of the trade and place a limit order. Before you go to bed, you work out what the profit will be one last time out of sheer excitement.

The following morning you awake to find that not only did EURUSD fail to respect former support as new resistance, but it also rocketed 200 pips higher against the USD taking out everything in its path including your stop loss.

The pair goes on to close the day back above your key level, negating the entire trade idea as well as your bearish bias.

Sound familiar?

Sure it does. We’ve all been there. Even the best looking trade setups can and do fail on occasion.

But the million-dollar question is, why did this happen?

Better yet, how could you have mitigated the risk or perhaps even benefited from the false break itself?

That’s what you’re about to learn. By the time you finish reading this lesson, you will have a firm understanding of what false breaks are, why they form as well as how to take advantage of them.

Read on to learn about this little-known trick.

What is a False Breakout?

First things first, before you can learn how to use false breakouts to your advantage, you have to know what they are and how to identify them.

A false break, or breakout, as the name implies, is any move (and subsequent close) above or below resistance or support respectively followed by a reversal that fails to respect the broken level as new support or resistance.

Let’s take a look at an example.

NZDJPY false break on the 4-hour chart

Notice how NZDJPY closed above channel resistance on a 4-hour basis but subsequently failed to hold above it as new support.

What’s important to note here is that we’re dealing with closing prices. If a currency pair merely pierces a critical level, it is not considered a false move.

For example, I see a lot of traders incorrectly labeling the two instances below as false breaks.

EURGBP no false breaks on the daily chart

Whether you consider these false breaks depends on how you define a “break.” For me, a breakout requires the close of a candle, and because I trade the daily time frame 90% of the time, it often involves a daily close above or below the level in question.

If we revisit the EURGBP chart above, the daily candle merely pierced resistance, so to label this as a false “break” is inaccurate as the candle never actually broke (closed above) the key handle.

Now, if you had been trading the 15-minute chart, the decision about whether or not it’s a false break would have been different. Having said that, the technique I’m about to show you is only accurate when used on the higher time frames such as the 4-hour and daily charts.

There is often too much “noise” on the lower time frames to adequately gauge what is a false break and what is not.

This brings us to the next, very important subject of time frames.

Time Frame Matters

The time frame you use to trade and thus identify these false breakouts is paramount to the overall effectiveness of this strategy.

To explain why this is the case, let’s revisit the EURGBP chart above.

EURGBP no false breaks on the daily chart

The two instances above were clearly NOT false breaks on the daily chart as well as any time frame above the daily. The pair never actually closed above the critical level; thus we couldn’t consider it a false breakout.

But what about the 4-hour chart?

Let’s take a look.

EURGBP view of the 4-hour chart

As you can see, while the daily chart never closed above resistance, the 4-hour chart certainly did.

So was this a false break for those trading the 4-hour chart at the time?

Perhaps, but remember that one of the ingredients for any false break is an obvious level of support or resistance. The retest in the chart above occurred after just one other test of resistance.

With this in mind, attempting to trade or even analyze the price action on a 4-hour closing basis would be ill-advised.

To understand why we have to go back to price action trading 101. One of the tenants of trading between support and resistance is that you must know which time frame is respecting a given level or pattern.

In the case of the EURGBP chart above, the 4-hour had not established itself as the predominant period in relation to the resistance level.

To clarify what I mean by predominant, let’s compare it to the ascending channel that formed on NZDJPY.

NZDJPY multiple retests of support and resistance

Notice how NZDJPY touched both support and resistance on several occasions prior to the false breakout. In this case, the 4-hour chart was clearly respecting the pattern and could therefore be used to assess the implications of the false break that eventually materialized.

Any false break is only as valid (and telling) as the time frame on which it occurs.

So which time frame is “best” for using the technique I’m about to show you?

In my experience, the 4-hour and daily periods work the best. However, each situation is unique, so it all depends on which time frame is respecting the key level in question.

Trading Away From False Breaks

Now that you know how to identify these false moves let’s dive into how you can take advantage of them.

Just like the pin bars we use when trading price action, a breakout that immediately fails is a sign of strength or weakness. We can use this to our advantage just like any other price action signal.

In fact, you can’t have a pin bar on the daily chart without having a false breakout on the intraday charts. The same applies to any combination of time frames.

The NZDJPY 4-hour channel below is a great example. Once the pair closed back below the upper boundary of the structure, it was time to begin watching for selling opportunities.

NZDJPY selling opportunity on the 4-hour chart

Note that the pair eventually found a bid right where we’d expect – at the channel support that had attracted buyers on three previous occasions.

In summary, we would have looked to sell on a 4-hour close back below resistance with a target at channel support.

Staying Out of Trouble

Remember how I mentioned that you could have mitigated the risk of getting sucked into these traps at the beginning of this lesson?

The best way to do that is through a firm understanding of price action. And that involves more than just pin bars and inside bars.

Allow me to explain.

You may have noticed that shortly after closing above channel resistance, NZDJPY formed a 4-hour bullish pin bar.

NZDJPY bullish pin bar on the 4-hour chart

Now, you may be asking yourself, why wouldn’t we have traded that bullish signal, which ultimately failed?

Good question. The reason we didn’t commit to this particular pin bar was quite simple.

The pattern in question is an ascending channel and therefore has bearish implications. As such, we would only want to trade a breakout below channel support, which never materialized before the close above resistance.

NZDJPY bearish flag pattern on the 4-hour chart

Technically speaking, the pattern above was a bearish flag as it was the result of an impulsive move lower. That meant that any buying was counter-trend and thus not advisable.

[thrive_custom_box title=”” style=”dark” type=”color” color=”#fef5c4″ border=”fadf98″]Pro Tip: As a general rule, ascending patterns have bearish implications while descending patterns have bullish implications.[/thrive_custom_box]

If on the other hand a pin bar had not formed here and the level was a horizontal pivot rather than a channel, we wouldn’t want to trade the breakout without confirming price action.

What is “confirming price action”, you ask?

Simply put, it’s a bullish or bearish pin bar that forms on a retest of the broken level. It adds conviction to the setup and provides a place to “hide” your stop loss.

You won’t always be able to avoid false breakouts. No technique or strategy will keep you safe 100% of the time.

But through the combined use of technical patterns and bullish or bearish price action, you can give yourself the edge needed to make money over an extended period.

Final Words

The false breakout strategy discussed above is ideal for the more advanced price action trader. If you’re just starting out or not yet profitable using the basic strategies taught on this site, you are probably better off sticking with those to first build a strong technical foundation.

Remember that like any trading strategy, technique or concept, the ideas discussed in this post are based on probabilities, not guarantees. So while a false break of a given level can often result in an extended move in the opposite direction, it does not guarantee the outcome as such.

Whether you use these teachings to formulate an outright trading strategy or only use them to assist in your technical analysis is up to you. As I always say, the “best” trading style is the one that works best for you.

As for me, I simply use the technique above as a way to gauge market strength and therefore add conviction to an already established trade idea.

Your Turn

How do you handle false breakouts while trading the Forex market?

Leave your comment or question below and I’ll be sure to respond.


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23  Comments

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  1. Hi, nice article, thank you. but I see why your analysis fail. your trendline are draw wrong way. this is very common. I am trading FX with trendlines for the passed 8 years.
    cheers,
    Jim

    1. Jim, the analysis didn’t fail. This was a profitable trade for us due to the strategy mentioned above.

      You may be referring to drawing the resistance level a bit higher, which could also be true. But as I pointed out above, the bullish pin bar that formed on the 4-hour chart confirmed that the resistance level was positioned correctly.

    2. Hi Jim,
      I don’t see any other way you could have drawn that trendline to avoid the falsebreak prior to it happening. Maybe you should illustrate

  2. hi justin…
    I think You should try drawing in a line chart. there will be more opinions…
    cheers,
    paijo sastro

    1. Paijo, I use a candlestick chart so that wouldn’t work. Also, you wouldn’t be able to identify false breaks with a line chart, at least not in the way that I trade/teach.

  3. Hi, its interesting article, where would I put my stop on a breakout of an ascending triangle? If after an impulse move, would it be better to Sell as it enter the channel and place the stop on highest pivot, the RR would be more reasonable?

  4. This article really clear my doubt on ascending and descending flags now I know the real facts k
    Thanks a lot for the articles …hope more will come from you.

  5. Thank you again Justin, for reminding us to look at the bigger picture, the context of the break, and that trading with the trend has a higher probability of success. so helpful to see the flag or wedge in the context of the bigger trend & to trade a break in the direction of the trend.

  6. Another very helpful article, Justin.

    In fact; the whole website, member’s area and support is superb.

    The best trading investment I have made was joining DPA.

    Cheers for the work you put into it.

    Dan.

  7. Hi Justin,
    I thought ascending patterns such as triangles were bullish and descending triangle patterns were bearish. Am I wrong?

    1. BUDDY ! IT’S ABOUT SELLING AND BUYING PRESSURE OCCUR IN INTERVALS WHICH CAUSES THE DIFFERENT PATTERN FORMATION,
      SO WHICH IS THE STRONGER ONE WILL DISPLACES THE WEAKER ONE.. I HOPE U WILL UNDERSTAND IT

  8. HI JUSTIN LOOK MAN AM SO PROUD OF YOU MAN ITS MY FIRST TIME TO TRADE PATTERNS . I AM A NEW TRADER I WAS LOST IN THE MIDDLE OF INDICATORS … LOOK DUDE YOU BROUGHT LIGHT IN MY EYES THANK YOU,THANK YOU THANK A MILLION TIMES YOU THE BEST KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.

  9. Hello Justin, great article, thank you. In your experience what connotations does a false breakout occurring in the normally expected pattern failure direction carry, if any? I.e an upward wedge having a false breakout downwards for example and then re-entering the structure. Thanks again

  10. What do you do in cases were, there a full body candle closes below resistance. Do you then consider that as a break out. This is when you don’t see any pin bars on that D1chart

  11. Do the candlestick whose wicks intersects the trendline in uptrend but it is not a false breakout will be counted as rebound or it is ignored from counting?

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