Price Channel

What Is a Price Channel?

A price channel appears on a chart when a security's price becomes bounded between two parallel lines. Depending on the direction of the trend, the channel may be termed horizontal, ascending, or descending. Price channels are often used by traders, who practice the art of technical analysis, to gauge the momentum and direction of a security's price action and to identify trading channels.

Understanding a Price Channel

A price channel forms when a security's price is buffeted by the forces of supply and demand, and can be upward, downward, or sideways trending. These forces affect the price of a security and can cause it to create a prolonged price channel. The dominance of one force determines the price channel’s trending direction. Price channels can occur over various time frames. They can be created by all types of instruments and securities, including futures, stocks, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and more.

Traders, especially those who are disciples of technical analysis, are always on the lookout for chart patterns that can aid them in their trading decisions. Once a security's price action carves out a set of highs and lows that follow a discernible pattern and can be connected by two parallel lines, a price channel has been formed.

The lower trendline is drawn when the price pivots higher, while the upper trendline is drawn when the price pivots lower. The steepness of inclines and declines determine the direction of the price channel's trend. An upward, or ascending price channel will be bounded by trendlines with a positive slope indicating that the price is trending higher with each price change.

Image by Julie Bang © Investopedia 2019

Likewise, a downward, or descending price channel will have trendlines with a negative slope indicating that the price is trending lower with each price change. The two lines of a price channel represent support and resistance. Support and resistance lines can provide signals for profitable investment trades.

Price channels are quite useful in identifying breakouts, which is when a security's price breaches either the upper or lower channel trendline. Additionally, traders can also trade within the channel — sell when price approaches the channel's upper trendline and buy when it tests the channel's lower trendline.

Price Channel Analysis

Potentially, there are a few ways to benefit from correctly identifying price channels. Investors, using both long positions and short positions, have the greatest opportunity to gain when security follows a delineated price channel path.

Optimizing profits in an uptrends relies on establishing buy positions in security at advantageous levels. Once a price channel has been identified, the investor can likely expect a security to reverse course and rise when its price reaches the channel's lower bound. This enables them to initiate a buy position at a discount price. In an upward trending price channel, a bullish investor may want to keep their holdings at the upward bound in anticipation of a breakout, which would lead to a surge in price. If the security appears likely to remain within its price channel, selling out or taking a short position at the upward bound can maximize profitability.

Conversely, a downward trending price channel can also be quite profitable. In a downward trending price channel, investors would want to short the stock at the upper bound and take an even deeper short position once a breakout is confirmed. They could also go against the prevailing trend and take long positions from the lower bound, anticipating price action to adhere to the established channel boundaries and head back up.