How a level is identified
By finding prices where the series repeatedly reversed, within a tolerance band since exact prices rarely recur. Count the touches, and record whether each one held or broke through.
A level tested four times and held three is a specific, checkable fact. A line drawn through two points is not.
Why levels exist at all
Clusters of resting orders, previous highs and lows where participants have memory, round numbers that attract attention, and liquidation thresholds where forced flow appears.
These are real mechanisms and they decay. A level from two years ago has far less of this structure behind it than one from last week.
The counting problem
With enough lines, every chart has a level near every price. The discipline is fixing the method in advance: a defined tolerance, a minimum number of touches, a defined window — then counting what the data gives you.
Drawing lines after the fact to explain a move is not analysis, and it is what most published chart commentary consists of.
The limit to state plainly
A level that held four times can break on the fifth, and nothing in the record says which time it will. The record is context for sizing and for where to place a decision, not a prediction.
FBT Swap counts touches across the whole series and reports the held-versus-broke record with the window, and says on the same screen that a level can break.