Breakaway Gap
The first of two Fair Value Gaps formed back to back in the same move — the one price never comes back to fill.
A breakaway gap almost never shows up alone: the general case is two Fair Value Gaps forming one right after the other, in the continuation of the same impulsive move. The second FVG — the one closer to price at the moment you're looking at the chart — can very well get retested and filled normally, like any other FVG. The first one never will: it, and only it, is what gets called the breakaway gap.
Why the first and not the second? Because the second FVG sits literally between current price and the first one. As long as that second gap holds — as long as the market does not trade all the way through it to reach further back — the first stays out of reach. The second acts as a protective wall, without needing to be a named mechanism like a breaker block itself: its mere presence between price and the older gap is enough.
How to spot one: look for an impulsive move long enough to leave two distinct voids instead of one — typically a run of large candles in the same direction, with a pause or an intermediate acceleration that visually separates the two zones. The older gap, the one furthest from current price in the direction of the move, is the breakaway gap candidate.
The real test comes on the next retracement. If price comes back and fills the second FVG but stops before reaching the first, the read is confirmed: the one at the back is indeed a breakaway gap. If instead price trades through both, neither one was — it was just an ordinary pair of consecutive FVGs.
Why it matters: an FVG that stays protected despite a retracement passing right in front of it is a signal of directional conviction. It shows the market has enough to fill one imbalance without needing to go back to the very first one — proof that the pressure remains committed far upstream.
How do you trade it? Not at the breakaway gap itself. You use the retracement into the second FVG — the one that fills normally — as an entry zone in the direction of the original move, with the breakaway gap further back serving as confirmation the structure is holding, not as a target.
The classic mistake: targeting a fill of the first FVG because "every FVG eventually gets filled". True in general, false here specifically because a second gap has stepped in between. Confusing it with an ordinary FVG means waiting for a return that never comes.
Second trap: calling it a breakaway gap the moment you see two FVGs in a row. The following retracement has to confirm the pattern — touching the second without reaching the first. Before that retracement, it is just two consecutive FVGs, nothing more.