Support and resistance are two forces used to describe fluctuations in the forex market. When you start trading on a regular basis, you’ll be hearing these terms a lot, and it’s important to know what analysts are talking about so you can plan your moves accordingly. Simply put, support is the lowest point that the market reaches before it starts climbing back up, and resistance is the highest it gets before it starts to drop.

A common mistake among new investors is to expect that a market will change course when it reaches a given number. This tends to lead to false breakouts, or trading large values in anticipation of a drop or fall in rates. Although analytics have come a long way, we haven’t reached that level of accuracy—and if we do, it will change the forex game altogether (since everyone would be on the winning end).

Experts suggest thinking of support and resistance not as a single number, but as “zones” in which a certain move is most likely to pay off. The key is therefore to figure out where these zones will fall, and make your move within these zones rather than waiting for a specific number. The usual candlestick chart can make these zones hard to plot; a better way is to jot things down on a line chart so that you can single out the right segments.

To do this, it’s important to know the three possible trends: uptrend (lowest points are higher), downtrend (highest points are lower), and sideways (they move from one point to the next). Resistance zones are the peaks in the chart, while support zones are the valleys. Uptrend lines therefore run along the bottom of support zones and a downtrend line goes on top of a resistance zone.

Another thing worth knowing is how to create channels. There are also three types: ascending, descending, and horizontal, corresponding to the three trend lines above. Ascending channels are created by drawing lines parallel to the uptrend and extending it until it reaches the latest peak. To do a descending channel, do the same with the downtrend line, touching the latest valley.

Sometimes, support and resistance can switch places. Resistance can turn into support when the price of a currency exceeds that resistance zone, and vice versa. This doesn’t happen every time, however, so think of it not as a signal to move, but as a cue to watch certain prices more closely.

This leads us to bounce and break—two ways to trading support and resistance levels. Trading the bounce involves waiting for the price to bounce back from its current trajectory before buying or selling, allowing you to protect against quick changes that can be hard to react to. Trading the break can be done in two ways. You can either buy or sell whenever the price slices through the support or resistance level (the aggressive method), or wait to see if it re-enters the zone (the conservative method).

Your move is largely a question of how much risk you’re willing to take on. Needless to say, more experienced traders are more likely to take more risk (e.g. trade aggressively as described above). Being a better trader doesn’t necessarily mean being a better predictor, but simply developing a healthy risk appetite.