SUPPLY AND DEMAND LEVELS

4 aug. 2023How do we determine the levels of supply and demand on a chart?

To find supply, we will look at the highs of price movements, and to find demand, we will look at the lows. We need to note highs and lows with fast and strong price movements. Fast rises for demand and troughs for supply. The less the price stays at a level the better for us. The first thing we need to do, just like when marking support and resistance levels, is to look at the highs and lows on the charts. Note that the closest area to the current price has been tested on the chart below. And the lower one has not been tested yet. It has only been touched by price once, so this area is stronger than the one that has already been tested.


At the marked levels, we observe that the price was at them for a short time. It reversed almost immediately and went down with large candles. The important factor here is the time that the price "did not stay" at the level. The less time the price was on the level, the more significant this level is. And it is worth keeping in mind the size of the candles. The bigger these candles are, the stronger the reaction.

In addition, supply and demand levels become mirrored. Just like support and resistance. If we pay attention to the highlighted area on the UKOIL chart below, we can see that there was first supply and then a strong breakout. The price overcame the supply, took its remain orders and went higher. And now this area has become a demand area:



As you can see, there was a quick bounce from it here. Our goal is to determine the demand at the low levels and the supply at the peaks. We find strong and fast price movements on the chart. A rise for demand and a fall for supply. These should be big candles and the price should not crowd in one place for a very long time. There should not be a long retracement. The less the price spends on the level, the better.

In addition, pay attention to round levels. Such as 1,100; 1,500; 1,300 and so on....
Do not go back too far on the chart, because what happened on it earlier is not so important for the methodology of supply and demand levels. These are not support and resistance levels after all. And once again I want to repeat to you that the most important thing is that these levels should be visible not only to you, but also to other players. In order for them to work them out.

What happens at these levels and why do they work?
At these demand levels, large players place limit buy orders, and at supply levels they place sell orders. Why does this happen? Because at these levels it is easier for the large players to execute the order by collecting the positions of smaller players. Every time the price reaches the supply area, we have sell orders executed by the big players. They take the buy orders that other players open and use them to execute their sell orders. When the buy orders run out, the price falls again. When it rises to the same level again, many sell orders of the big players are executed again with the help of stops and buy orders of smaller traders. When the opposite orders run out, the price falls again.

The point is that a large position cannot be opened simply without a significant change in price. That is why big players, banks, market makers have to play around and set some kind of traps for other traders in order to open larger positions at their expense. Now let's look at this area of the supply:



It was a supply level, but on two occasions many sell orders of big players were executed on it. On the third time, as you can see, there were no big players left, so the price decided to break this level and went higher. From this we conclude that supply tends to run out, just like demand. Once it is over, there is nothing to stop the price from breaking this level and going higher.

Therefore, it is considered that for profitable trading the supply and demand levels are suitable only for the first time, when the price has just touched the level. Then we can sell or buy on the retest of the level. But when the price comes back to it again (for the third time), we should not enter the trade it, as the breakout is very likely.

I should note that a higher candlestick maximum does not always mean that a new supply area has been created. And a lower low does not mean that a new area of demand has been created. It can be just a spike, a trace from the execution of a large number of orders.

In this trade, it is worth paying attention to higher time frames. If you trade on H4, look at daily and weekly charts. So that your buying on H4 does not fall into the supply area on the weekly charts. Use multiple timeframes in your trading and don't forget to look at the level on the higher timeframes.