Breaker Block

A breaker is an order block that did not hold. Price closed through it, continued, and later returned to it from the other side. A bullish breaker was a bearish order block that failed: sellers' zone got broken, and the same prices now act as support. A bearish breaker is a bullish order block that failed and now acts as resistance. The idea is role reversal, the same behaviour traders have marked on ordinary support and resistance for decades. The breaker label adds a rule for which zone to promote: the failed order block, not every broken line.

You need three steps or you do not have a breaker. First, a valid order block. Second, a close through it in the opposite direction, with a swing break so the failure is real. Third, a return to the zone that rejects from the new side. Skipping the close-through and calling any retest a breaker inflates the pattern. The zone is usually drawn on the same candle body or range as the original block. After a violent failure the candle may be far away. A breaker in another part of the chart is not a nearby entry. Trade it when price is actually there.

A bullish breaker is tested from above. The long is a hold of that failed supply zone, in the direction of the new structure. The stop goes back through the zone, because a return into the old direction means the failure of the failure. You are trading a role reversal. The trend that broke the original block is the bias. Do not buy a breaker that formed inside a larger downtrend you have not accounted for.

A bearish breaker is tested from below. The short is a rejection at the failed demand zone. A close back above it invalidates the short. The pattern fails most often when the "break" of the original block was a wick, not a close, and you promoted a zone that never actually failed.

Using breaker and order block for the same box at the same time. One of the stories is wrong. Also stacking breakers from every timeframe. And forgetting that role reversal can be tested more than once. A second hold is stronger. A grind through the zone is the market telling you the role did not reverse.

A breaker is only as objective as the order block it came from, which is a selected candle. It does not measure how much volume traded in the failure. A quiet close through a zone is a weaker role reversal than a displacement that leaves no doubt. Pair the label with the actual swing break or it is just a renamed line.