
- A breakout is a potential trading opportunity that occurs when an asset's price moves above a resistance level or moves below a support level on increasing volume.
- The first step in trading breakouts is to identify current price trend patterns along with support and resistance levels in order to plan possible entry and exit points.
- Once you've acted on a breakout strategy, know when to cut your losses and re-assess the situation if the breakout sputters.
- As with any technical trading strategy, don't let emotions get the better of you. Stick with your plan and know when to get in and get out.
How to identify a breakout in a stock?
On a breakout, if you notice that volume has increased above average levels, this is a positive sign. It helps to affirm that the price trend is more likely to keep moving in the breakout direction.
What happens when a stock breaks out?
Stock breakout patterns Price action within the share market is affected by supply and demand, and when a breakout signal occurs, this usually means that buyers have succeeded in pushing the stock’s price above the resistance level. In the case of a downside or negative breakout stock, sellers have pushed the price below support.
What is a downside breakout Stock?
In the case of a downside or negative breakout stock, sellers have pushed the price below support. While not all breakouts lead to big price movements, every big price movement will have multiple breakouts, typically starting with an initial breakout.
How do you trade a breakout Stock?
Trading a breakout stock is not quite as simple as buying or selling when a breakout to the upside or downside occurs. Making the entry is only one part of a robust strategy: you will also need a stop-loss, which controls the initial risk of the trade.

How do you tell if a stock will breakout?
To be sure the breakout will hold, on the day the stock price trades outside its support or resistance level, wait until near the end of the trading day to make your move. Set a Reasonable Objective: If you are going to take a trade, set an expectation of where it is going.
How do you predict breakout direction?
Bulkowski on Predicting the Breakout DirectionPrice should trend up leading to the start of the pattern (if it trends downward, it's a broadening bottom).The shape of the pattern should resemble a megaphone with the smaller end toward the left, wider to the right.More items...•
How do you get a breakout stock alert?
How to Scan for Sudden Breakout StocksSign up with online brokers such as USSA, TradeStation and E*TRADE if you don't already have one. ... Subscribe to services such as those provided by Stock Disciplines, Top Breakout Stocks and BreakoutWatch.com. ... Sign up for alerts to monitor stocks of interest.More items...
When should you buy breakouts?
You want to buy breakouts with a buildup. Higher lows into Resistance is a sign of strength. Lower highs into Support is a sign of weakness. The longer the market is in a range, the stronger the breakout.
Which stocks are near breakout?
stocks near breakoutS.No.NameQtr Sales Var %26.Guj. Ambuja Exp-25.1127.Gujarat Gas35.9728.Petronet LNG47.3329.Greenpanel Inds.20.9122 more rows
What is the best stock alert app?
These free stock market apps for Android and iPhone help you track prices, get alerts, manage your portfolio, and invest better....The 7 Best Free Stock Trading Apps for Android and iPhoneInvesting.com. 3 Images. ... 2. Yahoo Finance. 3 Images. ... Stocktwits. ... Real Time Stocks Tracker. ... My Stocks Portfolio & Widget. ... Bloomberg. ... JStock.
What is the best stock Alerter?
Here are the best currently available to help you beat the market.The Motley Fool Stock Advisor.The Motley Fool Rule Breakers.Seeking Alpha Premium.Trade Ideas.Mindful Trader.Pilot Trading.Investors Underground.Tim Alerts.More items...
How do you find a sideways stock?
A sideways market occurs when prices of investments remain within a tight range for any period. To identify a sideways market, find out the levels of support (the price where buyers come back in) and resistance (where buyers sell the investment).
What does it mean when a stock is a breakout?
The breakout is one of the essential concepts in technical analysis. It’s an excellent graphical representation that something has occurred to alter the market’s sentiment towards a stock. A breakout implies a current trend is over.
What are the indicators used to determine the direction of a breakout?
Traders use many technical indicators and trading patterns to establish the momentum and direction of breakouts: pennants (flags), triangles, head and shoulders, moving averages, trend lines, support, and resistance levels (pivot points) are among the most popular identification methods.
How much of the time do markets move?
Trading data suggests that markets range more than they trend. The accepted wisdom is that the financial markets move within limited ranges 70% of the time. Therefore, markets are trending only 30% of the time and this is when traders are most likely to make a profit. If you can find stock breakouts and concentrate on developing trading methods to capitalise on the phenomenon, you are putting yourself in the ideal position to experience capital growth.
What is a breakout strategy?
A popular breakout strategy involves the market open. Traders will anticipate a particular stock’s breakout movement when, for example, the New York Stock Exchange opens.
What does "market close" mean?
Market close = trade close . Breakout strategies usually involve trading a movement during a session or the day, and they’re not holdover trades where you remain in a swing for days or weeks. Whether you’re in profit or loss, you might want to consider closing the trade as the session relating to your trade ends. For example, if you’re in a NASDAQ stock trade, exit before or when New York closes.
What does increased volume mean in trading?
Increased trading volume and associated volatility can also be interpreted as a stock potentially breaking out, and specific technical indicators can help identify the increased trading volume.
How many shares can you trade on MT5?
With a Trade.MT5 account from Admirals, you can trade Contracts For Difference (CFDs) on over 3,300 different shares and over 300 Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)! CFDs allow traders to attempt to profit from both rising and falling prices, whilst also benefiting from the use of leverage. Click the banner below to open an account today:
What is a breakout in the stock market?
A stock market breakout or a breakout in a specific share is a tradable event that some active investors can base an entire strategy around. A breakout is when a stock or stock index moves beyond a level of support and resistance that it has struggled to move above or below in the past. Learning how to identify and trade potential breakout stocks gives traders one more tool that they can use to generate profits within an often-volatile market. Breakout stocks are shown on price charts, in particular, using candlestick charts to read price action.
How to tell if a breakout is good?
Another signal of a good breakout is if the breakout area holds on re-tests. If the price falls right back through the resistance level, this is not a good sign and traders could look to exit the trade. If there are no positive signals, a trend reversal in the opposite direction is more likely.
How to tell if a Bollinger band is going to breakout?
Watch for the bands to visually narrow and move sideways. When the price is making large movements, the bands will be wide apart. When the price is moving steadily, the bands will contract. Quiet periods are often followed by larger price movements and a subsequent breakout. In the Alibaba stock chart below, we can see that Alibaba shares showed this pattern before doubling in price over the next year. Note how the bands narrow compared to their prior width. A breakout above the Bollinger Band signals a potential breakout.
What does it mean when the price of a stock is near the prior high?
Once the share price is near the prior high, if the price swings start to get smaller and smaller, this means that the size of the price movement is contracting. You can draw trendlines on the swing highs and lows of these price swings, in order to see the handle of the cup, using the drawing tools on our advanced online trading platform . When the price moves above the upper trendline of the cup, traders may consider buying.
What is a breakout strategy in stocks?
A breakout strategy for stocks also requires an exit point if the trade turns profitable. Unlike long-term investors, breakout traders nail down their profits periodically. Each of the breakout methods discussed below involve both a stop-loss and a way to take profit.
Why do you need a stop loss on each trade?
Another result is that the price may breakout but then fail to move much afterwards. Not only does this mean that you will not get the profit expected, it also ties up your capital, wasting time and energy. For this reason, it is advisable to place a stop loss on each trade. This controls the risk and ensures that one losing trade does not jeopardise the whole account.
How much does a penny stock move?
Penny stocks tend to have big percentage moves, even though they do not move much in the way of price. For example, a penny stock may trade between $0.04 and $0.05 for a long period of time. Although it is only an increase of a cent, this also represents a 25% leap in value.
How to spot an uptrend?
One of the ways to spot an uptrend is to look for a stock creating new all-time highs. These price points are critically important because they confirm the stock's primary uptrend.
Why is a consolidation breakout important?
Longer-term consolidation breakouts are very important because Alpha Trader is a longer-term system. Its rules to exit a position are slow. This slowness requires big trends to make big profits. And as we've seen in the example above, big trends derive their power from longer-term consolidation breakouts.
Is trend following the basis for profit?
In that time, I've found that trend following is the basis for profit, no matter the investment system.
What happens when a stock breaks below support?
A breakout trader enters a long position after the stock price breaks above resistance or enters a short position after the stock breaks below support. Once the stock trades beyond the price barrier, volatility tends to increase and prices usually trend in the breakout's direction.
How to tell if a breakout is fake?
To determine the difference between a breakout and a fakeout, wait for confirmation . For example, fakeouts occur when prices open beyond a support or resistance level, but by the end of the day, they wind up moving back within a prior trading range. If an investor acts too quickly or without confirmation, there is no guarantee that prices will continue into new territory. Many investors look for above-average volume as confirmation or wait toward the close of a trading period to determine whether prices will sustain the levels they've broken out of.
What Is a Breakout?
A breakout is a stock price moving outside a defined support or resistance level with increased volume. A breakout trader enters a long position after the stock price breaks above resistance or enters a short position after the stock breaks below support. Once the stock trades beyond the price barrier, volatility tends to increase and prices usually trend in the breakout's direction. The reason breakouts are such an important trading strategy is because these setups are the starting point for future volatility increases, large price swings and, in many circumstances, major price trends.
How to know when a trade has failed?
It is important to know when a trade has failed. Breakout trading offers this insight in a fairly clear manner. After a breakout, old resistance levels should act as new support and old support levels should act as new resistance. This is an important consideration because it is an objective way to determine when a trade has failed and an easy way to determine where to set your stop-loss order. After a position has been taken, use the old support or resistance level as a line in the sand to close out a losing trade. As an example, study the PCZ chart below.
What is breakout in trading?
A breakout is a potential trading opportunity that occurs when an asset's price moves above a resistance level or moves below a support level on increasing volume. The first step in trading breakouts is to identify current price trend patterns along with support and resistance levels in order to plan possible entry and exit points.
Why is breakout trading so volatile?
Breakout trading welcomes volatility. The volatility experienced after a breakout is likely to generate emotion because prices are moving quickly. Using the steps covered in this article will help you define a trading plan that, when executed properly, can offer great returns and manageable risk.
What is important when trading breakouts?
When trading breakouts, it is important to consider the underlying stock's support and resistance levels. The more times a stock price has touched these areas, the more valid these levels are and the more important they become. At the same time, the longer these support and resistance levels have been in play, the better the outcome when the stock price finally breaks out.
When is a stock poised to breakout?
If you notice a pattern of a stock consistently breaking through resistance and/or support levels before regrouping, then it might be poised to breakout.
What Is a Breakout in Stocks?
A breakout stock is traditionally defined as when a stock’s price starts to move ahead of the accepted resistance level.
What is a stock screener?
Stock screeners help you sort out the stocks and steer you clear of undesirable markets that aren’t going to develop any viable results.
What happens if a stock screener spots a trend?
If the screener spots a trend of the stock moving up, it will send you an alert that lets you know it’s time to take action.
What are the best tools to keep in your trading arsenal to start seeing the patterns that lead to a breakout?
Instead, research, data, and technical analysis are probably the best tools to keep in your trading arsenal to start seeing the patterns that lead to a breakout stock.
Why do companies have breakouts?
Often, breakouts occur from unexpected media coverage that places a company in the spotlight.
Is the stock market a bit complex?
The answer (like most things in the stock market) is a bit complex, a bit instinctual, and a bit of luck.
Tail Gap Down Pattern
Traders who follow my tutorials know that one of my favorite stock patterns is the Tail Gap Strategy. I wrote several tutorials on this strategy and I recommend you review them at MarketGeeks.com or our video channel.
52 Week High And Ascending Triangle Pattern
Some of the best set ups are combination patterns, meaning two patterns occur at the same time. This increases the probability of trades working out even further, especially if both patterns have no conflicts between them. In this particular case we have a 1 year high breakout coupled with an ascending triangle pattern.
Other Ways To Increase Your Probabilities
When analyzing stocks for high probability entry set up’s, make sure to analyze the underlying sector and make sure the majority of the stocks in that sector are pointing in the same direction as your set up pick.
Breakout Stocks: How To Spot A Cup Base
Investors.com research finds that the cup remains one of the most successful patterns, perhaps second only to the cup-with-handle base. To spot a cup without a handle, you'll want to identify these following criteria. First, the stock needs to show a 30% uptrend from a price point that occurs before the base's construction.
Using Early Entries Within Cup Bases
Aggressive investors may also consider using an earlier entry that would snag shares at an even lower buy point. This is a great strategy to use during markets with heavy sector rotation as breakouts from traditional buy points are often foiled by a sector falling out of favor.
Cup Base In Nucor Stock
Among notable breakout stocks, Nucor ( NUE) formed a cup that began in mid-January, according to the MarketSmith chart analysis tool. MarketSmith's pattern recognition helps investors spot these bullish patterns. The cup completed six weeks later. The peak of the left side of the cup at 58.52, plus 10 cents, shows you a proper buy point of 58.62.
What does it mean when the market is a breakout?
When a breakout occurs, the market is telling you that there is a shift in supply and demand. As bulls or bears become more aggressive, this can lead to an imbalance large enough to sustain the breakout through the channel. It’s key to watch the volume.
Why enter a trade before a breakout?
Entering Prior to Breakout. The power of entering a trade prior to the breakout is you get to avoid the high slippage and volatility incurred when you enter on the breakout. You also get a much better price than those who enter after the breakout occurs.
What happens if a breakout happens on low volume?
If the breakout happened on low volume, the level of aggression is low and the move might not be sustained. Even worse, the move might be a fake breakout. High volume on a breakout signals that institutions, not just traders, are behind the move. Institutions defend their positions through continued buying and selling.
What direction should breakout trades be taken?
Taking breakout trades in the direction of the long-term trend puts the probabilities further in our favor. If we’re trading a breakout on a 15-minute chart, it’s smart to confirm the long-term trend is in the direction of the breakout on hourly and daily charts.
What is breakout trade?
What is a Breakout Trade? A breakout trade is when a stock breaks above or below a significant support or resistance level after failing to do so in previous attempts. The break of this significant channel can bring about a huge price move and a new trend.
Why do traders place stop loss at random prices?
Many traders place their stop loss at random prices, because that’s the price where they’d lose their maximum risk level. This usually ends with the trader being shaken out of the trade because they tried to take too much risk and as a consequence, had to have a tight stop.
What are the components of a breakout?
Components to a Successful Breakout. The best breakouts usually break out of very obvious, well defined support or resistance levels. These are levels of massive supply and demand, and when broken, can lead to a buying or selling frenzy. We need to be able to not only identify these important levels, but identify the behavior ...
