CRT Education · · 9 min read

Key Levels in CRT: Support & Resistance, Fair Value Gaps and Dealing Ranges

The key levels that matter in Candle Range Theory: range highs and lows, liquidity pools, fair value gaps, order blocks, premium and discount, and the time-based opens.

A key level is a price where orders are concentrated, and in Candle Range Theory every key level falls into one of four groups: range levels, liquidity levels, displacement levels and time levels. Support and resistance work, but not because the market "remembers" a price. They work because stop orders and resting orders cluster there, and large players need those orders to fill their positions. Once you read levels as liquidity, you stop asking "will support hold?" and start asking "who gets trapped here, and where does price go next?"

This guide covers each group, how I use fair value gaps and order blocks, how premium and discount keep you from buying high, and a short process for marking up a chart before the session.

Why classic support and resistance "fails"

Most traders draw support and resistance from obvious swing highs and lows. The problem is that everyone sees the same lines, and everyone puts their stop just beyond them. That makes the line a target, not a wall.

When "support breaks" and price rips back up a few minutes later, the level didn't fail. It was respected, just not the way the textbook says: price ran the stops below it, filled the orders it needed, and reversed. That's a liquidity sweep, and it's exactly what Candle 2 of a CRT does to the high or low of Candle 1.

Support and resistance also stop mattering when:

  • The range is expanding. A higher-timeframe move is underway, and the old intraday range is irrelevant.
  • You're on the wrong timeframe. Five-minute support means nothing if the four-hour chart is in full displacement through it.

So the CRT version of support and resistance is simple: higher-timeframe range highs and lows are the real levels, the stops behind them are the targets, and the trade comes after the sweep, not before it.

Group 1: range levels

Ranges are where large positions are built and unloaded. These are the levels inside and around them:

  • Range high and range low. The boundaries. In CRT, these are Candle 1's high and low. A fake break of either one (a spring below, an upthrust above) is the manipulation before the real move.
  • Equilibrium (the 50%). The midpoint of the range. Price is drawn to it, and it's often the first target after a sweep. It's a great place to take partial profits and a poor place to enter without confirmation.
  • The quarters (25% and 75%). Inside an active range, price oscillates between these. When it starts ignoring them and pressing one side, expansion is close.

The Wyckoff method guide explains what's happening inside these ranges and why the edges get swept.

Group 2: liquidity levels

Liquidity is fuel. These are the places where stops cluster:

  • Equal highs and equal lows. Two or more swing points at the same price. Retail traders see a "double top" and put their stops just above it, which turns it into a pool. Compression into equal highs followed by a sharp move away usually means the pool has been taken.
  • The previous day's high and low (PDH and PDL). Algorithms reference them, and many traders place stops beyond them. A sweep of PDH or PDL during a killzone is one of the most common CRT triggers.
  • The previous week's high and low. Same logic, bigger scale.
  • Session highs and lows. The Asia high and low, and the London high and low. New York frequently runs one of them.
  • Trendline liquidity. A clean diagonal line collects stops just beyond it. A break and immediate reclaim of a trendline is a turtle soup.
  • Round numbers. 1.1000, 40,000 on US30, 2,000 on gold. Orders cluster at round numbers because people think in them.

Group 3: displacement levels

When price moves aggressively, it leaves imbalance behind. Those areas act as magnets on the way back:

Fair value gaps (FVGs)

A fair value gap is a three-candle pattern where the wicks of the first and third candles don't overlap, leaving a gap beside the middle candle. It shows price was delivered so fast in one direction that the other side barely traded.

  • Bullish FVG: the gap between candle 1's high and candle 3's low, formed in a move up. It often acts as support on a pullback.
  • Bearish FVG: the gap between candle 1's low and candle 3's high, formed in a move down. It often acts as resistance on a rally.

How I trade them:

  1. Only after displacement. An FVG that forms in a slow drift isn't meaningful.
  2. Mark the zone from wick to wick.
  3. Wait for price to come back into the gap. Don't chase.
  4. Look for a reaction: a rejection or a lower-timeframe shift in the right direction.
  5. Stop beyond the FVG (or beyond the swing it came from), target the next liquidity level.

Not all FVGs are equal. Daily and H4 gaps are primary zones; H1 gaps are strong intraday zones; 15m and 5m gaps are for refining an entry inside a higher-timeframe zone; 1m gaps on their own mean very little. The most common mistake is trading every gap you see. Only take the ones that line up with the higher-timeframe bias, sit at a key level, and get tested during a killzone.

Inverse fair value gaps (IFVGs)

When price closes straight through an FVG instead of respecting it, the gap flips: a bullish FVG that fails becomes resistance, and a bearish one becomes support. After a turtle soup, an IFVG is one of my main entry conditions, because the failed gap is evidence that the move against the sweep has run out. The CRT entry model guide shows it step by step.

Order blocks

An order block is the last opposing candle before a strong move: the last down candle before a rally, or the last up candle before a drop. It marks where large orders were placed. When price returns to it, the remaining orders can create a reaction.

Order blocks have a clear invalidation: if price trades through the whole block with displacement, it's done. That gives you defined risk. The most useful version in CRT is the purge order block: the candle that swept the liquidity (Candle 2) and then got displaced away from. A retest of it is a clean entry.

Origin of the move and unmitigated zones

The level where a strong move started, and zones price hasn't returned to since, tend to get revisited. When one of these sits at a range edge or an FVG, the confluence is worth paying attention to.

Group 4: time levels

Time theory gives you levels that algorithms reference every single day:

  • The midnight open (12 am New York). Often the dividing line for the day: in a bullish day, the best longs tend to come below it; in a bearish day, the best shorts above it.
  • The daily open (6 pm New York). Where the trading day actually starts.
  • The weekly open (Sunday 6 pm New York). A pivot for the week's price action.
  • Session opens. The Asia, London and New York opens, and the 8:30 am and 9:30 am New York opens for the indices.

These are covered in depth in the time theory guide and the CRT timings guide.

Dealing ranges: premium and discount

A dealing range is the high-to-low range price is working inside for a given period: yesterday's range, last week's, or a recent swing high to swing low. Split it at the 50%:

  • Above the 50% is premium. Expensive. This is where you want to sell, not buy.
  • Below the 50% is discount. Cheap. This is where you want to buy, not sell.

That alone fixes one of the most common mistakes: buying a long at the top of the range because it "looks strong". If your bias is bullish, wait for discount. If it's bearish, wait for premium.

Dealing ranges nest. A daily range sits inside a weekly range, which sits inside a monthly range. When the discount of the daily lines up with the discount of the weekly, that's a strong zone. The best version is a sweep of the range low into deep discount, during a killzone, followed by a CRT reversal. You get a defined stop (beyond the sweep), and the targets are the 50% and then the range high.

How the levels work together in a CRT trade

Here's how one setup uses all four groups:

  1. Range: yesterday's candle is Candle 1. Its high and low are the range, and its 50% is the first target.
  2. Liquidity: today, during the London or New York killzone, price runs yesterday's low (PDL), the equal lows beneath it and the Asia low. That's Candle 2.
  3. Displacement: price snaps back above the swept low with a strong candle, leaving a bullish FVG, and closes through a small bearish FVG on the way (an IFVG).
  4. Time: the sweep happened below the midnight open, in discount, inside a killzone.
  5. Entry: on the retest of the FVG or purge order block. Stop below the sweep low.
  6. Targets: the 50% of yesterday's range, then yesterday's high (the far side of Candle 1).

Each level answers a different question: where the range is, where the stops are, whether large money showed its hand, and whether it happened at the right time.

Marking up your chart before the session

Keep it to the levels that matter. A chart with forty lines is a chart you can't read:

  1. Previous week's high, low and 50%.
  2. Previous day's high, low and 50%.
  3. The Asia high and low (and London's, before New York).
  4. The midnight open.
  5. Any obvious equal highs or equal lows nearby.
  6. The one or two higher-timeframe FVGs closest to price.

That's it. The CRT Radar and the DOL Map draw most of these automatically, so you can spend your time reading the story instead of drawing lines. The CRT University lessons cover the key levels in order, and the CRT Handbook covers the full system.

FAQ

What are key levels in trading?

Prices where orders cluster: range highs and lows, previous day and week highs and lows, equal highs and lows, fair value gaps, order blocks, and time-based opens like the midnight open.

How does CRT use support and resistance?

As liquidity. Range highs and lows have stops behind them; CRT waits for price to sweep one side during a killzone, close back inside, and then targets the other side.

What is a fair value gap?

A three-candle imbalance where the wicks of the first and third candles don't overlap. It shows fast, one-sided delivery, and price often returns to it before continuing.

What is an inverse fair value gap?

A fair value gap that price closed through instead of respecting. It flips roles: a failed bullish gap becomes resistance, and a failed bearish gap becomes support.

What's the difference between premium and discount?

They're the halves of a dealing range, split at the 50%. Premium is the upper half, where you look to sell; discount is the lower half, where you look to buy.

Which timeframe should I mark levels on?

The daily and H4 for the main levels, H1 for intraday zones, and the 15m or 5m only to refine an entry inside a higher-timeframe zone.

Education only, not financial advice. Trading involves substantial risk of loss.