Support and resistance: what actually holds

Support and resistance are zones where price has previously reversed or paused, not exact lines. Treating them as a precise price to the pip is a common source of frustrated 'the level didn't hold' complaints.

The more times a zone has been tested, the more traders are watching it, which can make reactions there sharper, but also more prone to a fast fakeout before the 'real' move. Waiting for confirmation (a rejection candle, a break and retest) filters out a lot of noise.

The most reliable zones tend to line up with more than one thing at once: a prior swing high/low, a round number, and a moving average, for example. Confluence matters more than any single line on the chart.