What you will learn in this lesson
- Learn how to draw a horizontal line on TradingView
- Understand what "support" means - a level where a falling price has tended to stop and bounce
- Understand what "resistance" means - a level where a rising price has tended to stop and reverse
- See how horizontal lines are used to mark these zones directly on a chart
The previous lesson covered trend lines - angled lines connecting a rising or falling series of swing points. This lesson covers their flatter counterpart: horizontal lines, and the concept they’re most commonly used to mark - support and resistance.
Drawing a Horizontal Line
The horizontal line tool sits in the same left-hand drawing tools panel as the trend line tool, usually labelled “Horizontal Line.” Unlike a trend line, it only needs one click: select the tool, click once at the price level you want to mark, and TradingView draws a flat line across the entire visible chart at that exact level.
What Is Support?
Support is a price zone where a falling price has, in the past, tended to find enough buying interest to stop declining and turn back up. It’s a pattern observed directly on the chart - not a rule set by anyone, and not a guarantee about what happens the next time price approaches that same zone.
What Is Resistance?
Resistance is the mirror image of support - a price zone where a rising price has, in the past, tended to find enough selling interest to stop climbing and turn back down.
resistance ─ ─ ─ ─●─ ─ ─ ─●─ ─ ─ ─ (price repeatedly stalls here)
╱ ╲ ╱ ╲
╱ ╲ ╱ ╲
support ─ ─ ●─ ─ ─ ╲ ╱─ ─ ─●─ ─ (price repeatedly bounces here)Using Horizontal Lines to Mark These Zones
In practice, marking support and resistance means looking at a chart’s recent history, identifying levels where price has clearly stalled or reversed more than once, and drawing a horizontal line at (or near) that level. Common candidates include:
- A recent, clearly visible swing low (as potential support)
- A recent, clearly visible swing high (as potential resistance)
- Round numbers (like a Nifty level of 25,000), which many market participants tend to watch simply because they’re psychologically easy to remember
It’s worth treating these as approximate zones, not one single exact price - real price rarely reverses at the identical value every single time.
Real-Life Example: Marking Levels on a Bank Nifty Chart
Suppose a trader notices Bank Nifty has bounced twice, over the past month, from roughly the same price zone, and separately stalled twice near a higher zone before pulling back. They draw one horizontal line at the lower zone (marking it as potential support) and another at the higher zone (marking it as potential resistance). Over the following weeks, they watch how price behaves as it approaches either line again - not as a guaranteed signal, but as a useful, visual point of reference informing their broader read of the chart.
Analogy: A Ball Bouncing Between a Floor and a Ceiling
Think of support and resistance like a ball bouncing inside a room with a floor and a low ceiling. The floor (support) doesn’t stop the ball through any special force - it simply happens to be a surface the ball has repeatedly landed on and bounced off of. The ceiling (resistance) works the same way in reverse. If the ball is ever thrown hard enough, it can break straight through the floor or ceiling - just as price can break cleanly through a support or resistance zone that had previously held.
Common Beginner Mistakes
- Treating support or resistance as an exact, single price rather than an approximate zone. Real price rarely reverses at the identical value each time.
- Marking too many levels on one chart. A handful of genuinely significant levels is far more useful than a cluttered chart full of minor ones.
- Assuming a level will hold forever, simply because it held in the past. Support and resistance describe historical tendencies, not guarantees.
- Forgetting to reconsider a broken level. A support zone that’s been clearly broken is commonly discussed as a possible resistance zone if price returns to it from below.
Practical Tips
- Start by marking only the most obvious, clearly repeated levels on a chart - the ones price has visibly reacted to more than once.
- Use trend lines and horizontal lines together - they highlight different kinds of structure (angled vs flat) that often reinforce each other.
- Keep revisiting your marked levels as new price history comes in, adjusting or removing ones that no longer look relevant.
Practical Exercise
- Open a chart with a visible recent swing low, select the horizontal line tool, and draw a line at that level - then scroll back further in the chart's history to see whether price has approached or reacted near that same level before.
- Do the same for a recent swing high, marking it as a possible resistance level, and compare how many times price has approached each of your two lines without immediately blowing straight through.
Mini Quiz
1. What does "support" mean, conceptually, on a price chart?
Support describes a price zone where a falling price has, in the past, tended to find enough buying interest to stop declining and turn back up - it's a pattern observed on the chart, not a rule enforced by anyone.
2. What does "resistance" mean, conceptually, on a price chart?
Resistance describes a price zone where a rising price has, in the past, tended to find enough selling interest to stop climbing and turn back down.
3. How many points do you typically click to draw a horizontal line on TradingView?
Unlike a trend line, a horizontal line only needs a single price level - clicking once at that level is enough for TradingView to draw a flat line across the entire chart at that price.
4. Is a support or resistance level a guarantee that price will stop there in the future?
Support and resistance describe zones where price has behaved a certain way in the past. Many traders watch these zones closely, but neither is a guarantee - price can and does break through either level.
5. What happens, conceptually, when a broken support level is later revisited from below?
A commonly discussed idea among traders is that a broken support level can later act as resistance if price returns to it from below (and vice versa) - though, like all support/resistance behaviour, this is a pattern many watch for, not a guaranteed rule.
6. Are support and resistance levels always exact, single price points?
Real price rarely reverses at the exact same value every time, so many traders treat support and resistance as approximate zones - a general area worth watching - rather than one single precise number.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I find the horizontal line tool on TradingView?
In the same left-hand drawing tools panel as the trend line tool, usually just below or near it in the toolbar - often labelled "Horizontal Line."
How do I decide which price level to mark as support or resistance?
A common starting point is marking recent, clearly visible swing lows (as potential support) or swing highs (as potential resistance) - points where price has already stopped and reversed at least once are usually the most relevant candidates to mark.
Can round numbers, like Nifty at 25,000, act as support or resistance too?
Many traders do watch round numbers closely, since a large number of market participants tend to place orders around them, which can sometimes create genuine support or resistance-like behaviour, even without a specific prior swing point at that exact level.
Is support and resistance only relevant for intraday trading, or does it apply to longer-term charts too?
It applies across every timeframe covered in Lesson 7 - from a 5-minute intraday chart to a weekly or monthly view. The specific levels will differ depending on the timeframe, but the underlying concept works the same way at every zoom level.
What should I do if price breaks cleanly through a level I marked as support?
Many traders reassess at that point - a clean break can suggest the previous support zone is no longer holding, and some traders watch to see whether that same level, if revisited from below, starts behaving like resistance instead.
Can I draw more than one horizontal line on the same chart?
Yes - there's no limit on how many horizontal lines can be drawn, though marking too many at once can make a chart cluttered and harder to read. Most traders keep to a handful of genuinely significant levels.
Do support and resistance levels work the same way on Futures and Options charts?
Yes - the underlying idea (a zone where price has repeatedly stalled) applies to any instrument with a price history, including Futures and Options contracts, the same way it applies to a stock or index chart.
Is support and resistance a reliable enough concept to trade on by itself?
Most experienced traders treat it as one input among several, rather than a standalone system - combining it with other tools (like the trend lines from the previous lesson, or the indicators covered starting in Module 5) rather than relying on support and resistance in isolation.
Can a horizontal line be moved after it's drawn?
Yes - clicking on an existing horizontal line typically allows it to be dragged up or down to a new price level, or deleted entirely, without needing to redraw it from scratch.
How is a horizontal line different from a trend line, covered in the previous lesson?
A horizontal line marks one flat, unchanging price level across the whole chart, while a trend line is angled, connecting rising or falling swing points over time - they highlight different kinds of price structure, and many traders use both together.
Glossary
Key Takeaways
- A horizontal line only needs one click to define a flat price level, unlike a trend line's two points.
- Support is a price zone where a falling price has tended to stop declining and bounce; resistance is where a rising price has tended to stop climbing and reverse.
- Neither support nor resistance is a guarantee - they describe zones based on past behaviour that many traders watch closely.
- Support and resistance are often better treated as approximate zones rather than one single exact price.
- A broken support level is commonly discussed as potentially acting as resistance later, if revisited from below (and vice versa).
- The concept applies across every timeframe and instrument type, from intraday stock charts to weekly Futures charts.
Conclusion
Horizontal lines give a trend line's flat-price counterpart a home on the chart - marking the zones where price has repeatedly stalled, in either direction. The next lesson builds on this same idea with a more structured tool for measuring pullbacks between a swing low and swing high: the Fibonacci retracement.