How To Trade Off Liquidity Levels Following A Structure BreakoutGrasping how to trade around liquidity levels is crucial. The fundamentals of technical analysis revolve around identifying and leveraging these points.
One common mistake that new traders make is not choosing the right price levels for trades. This can lead to inadequate risk-reward setups and inconsistency in trading results.
What Are Liquidity Levels?
For large institutions and traders needing to execute substantial orders, locating sufficient liquidity is vital. A market’s liquidity significantly influences price volatility. When major players enter the market, they aim to achieve the best possible prices. However, due to the size of their orders, they need ample counter-orders to fill their trades while minimizing slippage. If a trader attempts to enter a position in a low-liquidity area, the resulting volatility can negatively impact their average entry price. Conversely, entering at a high-liquidity level usually means less price fluctuation, leading to a more favorable average price.
So, where can you find these liquidity levels? Look at where stop-loss orders are likely placed. This is where the concept of “stop-loss hunting” comes from—large players need liquidity to accumulate significant positions, which makes these areas of interest since they help reduce slippage.
A liquidity level arises from an initial imbalance in supply and demand, forming what we know as swing highs or lows. As more traders take positions, these levels become historical reference points for placing stops. When these levels are revisited, a decision point occurs, leading to either a breakout or a reversal.
A useful guideline is to watch for rejections that don’t reach a 50% retracement of the previous high or low, as this might indicate a lower-quality liquidity level. Strong rejections tend to indicate better chances of holding during retests. I personally look for rejections that result in a breakout into new highs or lows. Other factors, such as market conditions (risk-on/risk-off), broader market structure, and relevant economic data, also play a crucial role in assessing whether a level will hold.
Trading EUR/USD Using Liquidity Levels
To illustrate how to identify potential buying or selling opportunities based on liquidity levels, draw a horizontal line from the latest wick or swing high/low and extend it until it meets price again.
In the EUR/USD hourly chart example below, I selected a month’s worth of data, marking blue lines for liquidity levels that led to market structure breakouts (higher highs or lower lows) and red lines for levels where retests failed to break the structure. I recommend a strategy of targeting a 2:1 risk-reward ratio, setting stop-loss orders at half the size of the previous swing, moving to break even at 1:1.
By the end of this exercise, it should be clear that trading on liquidity levels with a breakout condition (blue lines) significantly increases your chances of success compared to trades that go against the prevailing market structure (red lines). If you focused solely on the blue levels, you might have experienced 6 winning trades and only 1 loss at a 2:1 risk-reward ratio.
By combining this approach with additional factors like aligning with higher timeframe cycles, considering fundamental analysis, and practicing disciplined risk management, you may find this strategy aligns with your trading style. I encourage you to explore this methodology through your own backtesting and see how it can enhance your trading arsenal.
