Why do Swap zones work?
The basic concept is to remove the zone from the chart when it is broken by price. Though as far as Supply and Demand idea is based on the principle of Support and Resistance, it is a well-known fact that former support areas become resistances when price reverses to them from the opposite side.
Some professional traders even consider swap zones more powerful in comparison to conventional supply and demand areas because fewer people using them which increase the trades probability because the crowd can not win – it is a famous proverb.
To be more precise, let’s define exactly the difference between S/D and Swap zones. Supply and Demand zones are fairly easy to identify. In common, the Supply and Demand zone represents a local extreme (Low or High) where price has changed its direction significantly.
Eventually, a demand level is formed when the price comes to an area, consolidating afterwards and finally rallies, thus identifying the area where there is demand.
The difference is that when the extreme (low in the case of the Demand zone) is broken, the zone should not be removed from the chart. We keep it and wait for the reversal to occur and to enter a trade in the direction of the breakout.
The direction of the breakout (i.e. a trend) is another benefit of the swap zones in comparison to conventional S/D zones because in this case, you are staying with the overall asset movement and not trying to catch a falling knife by entering the trades in the zones of Demand.
A supply zone is simply the opposite. They are formed when the price goes up and then forms a base, consolidates and eventually starts to drop. The supply swap zones are especially useful for people who like swing trading and investing in equity markets.
It’s a known fact that equity markets tend to grow up on a long time distance. Therefore when some supply zone is broken and a reversal to that zone occurs, it is a very good area to get in to catch an upward movement.
Figure 1. US500 chart with Supply and Demand zones
In Figure 1, we have used the Swap Zones indicator on the US500 chart. The red-coloured rectangles show the supply zones or so-called resistance areas. The green rectangles show the demand areas or the support areas.
You can see that the indicator plots these levels automatically. If you look at the middle of the chart where the blue arrow is placed, price broke the tiny supply zone and then retested it pip-to-pip. The strong rebound followed this retest and gave a very good risk/reward ratio which is very important according to risk management.
Also when the price went away after the swap zone touch, the demand zone was formed with an intersection with it that is another strong confirmation. Such price action activities give high probability signals and add a certain level of confidence when entering the trades.