A brief push above the ceiling of a distribution range that fails and falls back inside, trapping breakout buyers.
The mirror of a wyckoff-spring. Price clears the range high, stops above are triggered, breakout buyers enter, and then price closes back inside the range. The extended version, upthrust after distribution, comes late in the topping process.
Traders watch for weak follow-through: a break that stalls immediately, with heavy volume but little price progress, is the effort-vs-result signature of supply meeting demand.
The same warning applies as with springs. A break above a range that holds is simply a breakout, and many upthrusts are called only after price fell. Requiring a close back inside the range within a stated number of bars converts the idea into something you can actually test.
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.
Range versus trend. On the left price keeps bouncing between the same floor and ceiling, which is a range. On the right each high and each low is higher than the last, inside a pair of sloping lines called a channel.Breakout and retest. Price stalls under the same level several times, pushes above it, then drops back to touch it from above before carrying on. That touch is the retest, where the old ceiling is tried as a floor. A break that falls straight back under it is a false breakout.
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