Support and Resistance Levels: How They're Calculated
Support and resistance are widely referenced price levels in technical analysis. Here's the classic pivot-point formula behind them and what the levels actually represent.
Monminds Research Team
2 Sept 2026 · 4 min read
What support and resistance represent
Support and resistance are price levels derived from recent trading activity — support marks a level where buying interest has historically been strong enough to slow a decline; resistance marks a level where selling pressure has historically capped an advance. They're descriptive of past price behavior, not a prediction of what happens next.
The classic pivot-point formula
One standard, widely used method calculates these levels from the most recently completed trading session's high, low, and closing price: Pivot = (High + Low + Close) ÷ 3. From there, Resistance = (2 × Pivot) − Low, and Support = (2 × Pivot) − High.
This is a purely mechanical calculation — the same formula applied identically to every company's most recent completed session, with no subjective input.
The honest limits of this
These levels are backward-looking by construction — they describe where price reacted recently, not where it's guaranteed to react next. Markets can and do move through both levels, especially around news or results. They're best treated as one data point among many, not a signal on their own.
Monminds computes support and resistance for every tracked company using this exact pivot-point formula from the most recently completed trading session, shown alongside the rest of each company's risk metrics.
Editor's note
Monminds Research is an analytics, research-workflow, and decision-support platform — not a guaranteed-returns product, and nothing on this site is personalized investment advice.
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