Breaker block

How a breaker forms

A breaker starts life as an ordinary order block. Take a bullish one, the last down candle before a rally:

1. Price rallies from the block and makes a new high, beyond the previous high, taking the buy stops there (a liquidity sweep).
2. The rally fails. Price falls and closes below the bottom of the order block. The buyers who used it are now losing.
3. Price rallies back up to the old block from below. That block is now a bearish breaker: a place to look for a sell.

A bullish breaker is the mirror image: a bearish block that fails after a new low, then holds as a floor when price comes back down to it. The usual explanation is that traders caught on the wrong side close their positions at break-even when price returns, which adds orders in the new direction.

Breaker or mitigation block

Traders don't agree on whether step 1 is required. In the stricter ICT reading, it is: without the new high or low before the failure, the flip is a mitigation block, not a breaker. Many charting tools and courses skip that test and call any broken order block a breaker.

StraviFX's glossary keeps the plain definition: a failed order block that price returns to from the other side. If you trade breakers, decide whether you want the sweep first, and note it in your journal, because the two rules give you different trades.

A worked example

A 1-hour GBP/USD chart. The prices are an illustration, not real data.

• The order block: the last down candle before a rally trades between 1.2710 and 1.2725. The rally makes a high at 1.2790, 10 pips above the previous high at 1.2780, and sweeps the buy stops there.
• The failure: price then falls and closes at 1.2695, below the block's low of 1.2710. The bullish block has failed, and 1.2710–1.2725 is now a bearish breaker.
• The trade idea: price rallies back into the zone. A sell at 1.2718, with the stop at 1.2733 (8 pips above the top of the zone), risks 15 pips. The target is the next swing low at 1.2670, 48 pips away: a 1:3.2 risk-to-reward.
• The size: on a $1,500 account risking 1% ($15), 15 pips at $10 a pip per standard lot gives 0.10 lots, risking $15.

A tight zone gives a tight stop and a good ratio on paper, but breakers fail too. A close back above 1.2725 ends the idea. The lot size calculator works out the size for any stop.

Why it matters

A breaker tells you something a plain order block can't: that one side tried and lost. Instead of buying a zone that has already failed, you get a reason to look the other way, with a clear level where that new idea is wrong. It is also a reminder that a zone is only a zone until price closes through it.

Common mistakes

• Calling it on a wick. A wick below an order block that closes back inside is a test, or a sweep, not a failure. The block breaks on a close beyond it.
• Fading the new trend. A breaker usually forms after a change of character. Buying the old bullish block again at that point is trading the trend that just ended.
• Ignoring which rule you use. With and without the sweep, the zones differ. Mixing the two makes your results impossible to compare.
• Putting the stop inside the zone. Price often trades deep into a breaker before turning. The stop goes beyond its far side.

Questions

Breakers in the app

The StraviFX glossary defines breaker blocks so you can follow any reading that mentions one, and every term in an analysis links to its definition. The app's rules don't hunt for breakers on their own: the hourly Swing signals check works from sweeps, breaks of structure and fair value gaps, and the analysis places stops beyond the swing point or order block that would prove the idea wrong. The decision stays with you.

Related terms

• Market structure: The sequence of swing highs and lows a market prints: rising is bullish, falling is bearish, neither is a range.
• Break of Structure (BOS): A candle close beyond the last swing high or low in the direction of the trend. It signals continuation.
• Change of Character (CHoCH): The first break against the trend: an uptrend closing below its last higher low, or a downtrend above its last lower high.
• Market Structure Shift (MSS): The confirmed flip that can follow a CHoCH: a failed swing in the old direction, then a close beyond the next swing.
• Swing high / swing low: A candle whose high is above its neighbours, or whose low is below them. The pivots every structure reading is measured from.
• Higher highs / higher lows: The four swing labels (HH, HL, LH, LL) and what each combination says: uptrend, downtrend or range.
• Range / consolidation: Price moving between a ceiling and a floor with no new highs or lows beyond them. A reason to wait, or to trade the edges.
• Retest: Price coming back to a level it has just closed beyond, to see whether the level now holds from the other side.
• Liquidity: Resting orders, mostly stop losses, that pool just beyond obvious highs, lows and round numbers. Price is often drawn toward them.
• Liquidity sweep / stop hunt: A push past an obvious high or low that triggers the stops there, then closes back inside. A close beyond is a breakout.
• Buy-side / sell-side liquidity: Buy orders resting above price (BSL) and sell orders resting below it (SSL). The pools a move is likely to travel toward.
• Equal highs / equal lows: Two or more highs or lows at nearly the same price. A flat edge that collects stops, so a common sweep target.
• Order block (OB): The last opposing candle before a strong move away. A zone price may return to, with the stop just beyond it.
• Fair Value Gap (FVG): A three-candle gap where candle 1's high and candle 3's low don't overlap. Traded through fast, so often revisited.
• Mitigation block: A failed order block after a swing that fell short. Price breaks it, then returns from the other side as trapped traders exit.
• Supply / demand zone: The base a sharp move left from: demand below price, supply above. The first return to a fresh zone usually counts most.
• Premium / discount: A range split at its 50% midpoint, equilibrium. Buy in the discount half, sell in the premium half.
• Optimal Trade Entry (OTE): The 62–79% pullback of the last impulse leg. A deep entry that keeps the stop close and the target far.
• Entry: The price a trade opens at: market, limit or stop. With the stop and target fixed, it sets the risk and the reward.
• Stop loss: An order that closes the trade at a set price to cap the loss. It goes where the idea is proven wrong, plus a buffer.

See every term in the trading glossary.