Whole numbers

Round numbers

A round number is a price that ends in zero. In forex especially, large traders and institutions like to set their orders around whole numbers, which they call double zeros. People have a psychological pull toward specific whole numbers because that is how our brains work: we round things off, the way a meeting is "about 3 o'clock". On a chart those double-zero prices tend to act as barriers, as support and as resistance.

What to use them for

A whole number gives you a place to expect a reaction, so it serves three jobs. It is a level to look for an entry when price returns to it with the trend. It is a place to keep a stop away from, a few pips beyond the number rather than on it, because the number is where everyone else's stop sits. And it is a natural target when the trade is running toward the next one.

Double zeros

On EUR/USD the double zeros are 100 pips apart: 1.0500, 1.0600, 1.0700 and so on. Price pauses or turns at one after another, and the halfway marks matter too: the pair retested the 1.0850 area before it broke out toward 1.1000.

A whole number on gold

On gold the whole numbers are the hundreds. The institutional candle that turned the market came in at 2050, the later liquidity grab reached the same number, and the accumulation that created the shift in momentum sat on 1620.

Your own levels

Every entry, stop and target you log is drawn on the Trade Desk chart at its price, so you can see for yourself how often a stop sat right on a round number, and how often the next one was the target you never set.