Role reversal

The most interesting behaviour of support and resistance is role reversal: a broken resistance can act as support on later declines, and a broken support can act as resistance on later rallies. The traditional reading is that once a level is cleared, the market's memory of it changes sides.

On a chart you recognise it like this: price clears a resistance zone on a close, later returns to test the same zone from above, and bounces up from it again. That return visit is called a retest. A retest that holds adds evidence that the breakout had real force behind it.

What does it not say? Role reversal is a tendency, not a mechanical law. Not every broken resistance becomes support; sometimes price comes back and cuts through the zone without pausing. Treat the retest not as something owed to you, but as evidence to record if it happens. A common mistake is to find role reversal in hindsight: draw the zone after the break and every bounce looks like "there, it turned into support" — if you did not mark the zone beforehand, you are not testing anything.