Market Structure, Smart Money & Price Action
Swings, liquidity, and the zones price-action traders mark around institutional activity. 24 topics.
Price Action
Reading the chart from price itself: swings, bars, and levels, without requiring an indicator.
Smart Money Concepts (SMC)
A price-action framework built around liquidity, order blocks, imbalances, and shifts in swing structure.
Order Block
The last opposing candle before a strong impulsive move, marked as a zone price may revisit.
Breaker Block
A failed order block that price has closed through, then used from the other side.
Mitigation Block
A zone where an earlier opposing swing is revisited, in SMC usage the candle before a failure to make a new extreme.
Fair Value Gap (FVG)
A three-candle imbalance where the middle candle's range is not overlapped by the candles on either side.
Imbalance
A price area skipped or travelled so quickly that trade did not balance between buyers and sellers.
Liquidity
Prices where orders are likely to be resting, especially stops beyond obvious highs and lows and limits at obvious levels.
Buy-Side Liquidity (BSL)
Resting buy stops thought to sit above an obvious high, a target for a move up and a risk for late longs.
Sell-Side Liquidity (SSL)
Resting sell stops thought to sit below an obvious low.
Liquidity Sweep
A move through an obvious high or low that fails and closes back inside, taking resting stops and reversing.
Liquidity Grab
A quick spike through a nearby stop level, another name for a short sweep that reverses.
Stop Hunt
A push through a cluster of obvious stops, often alleged to be deliberate, that may reverse or may become the breakout.
Inducement
A minor high or low that tempts early entries before price reaches the larger liquidity pool.
Internal Structure
The swings inside the most recent leg, as opposed to the major swings that bound the trend.
External Structure
The major swings that define the trend, outside the smaller swings nested inside them.
Premium Zone
The upper half of a dealing range, the prices above the midpoint of the swing being measured.
Discount Zone
The lower half of a dealing range, the prices below the midpoint of the swing being measured.
Equilibrium
The midpoint of a dealing range, the price halfway between the swing high and the swing low.
Optimal Trade Entry (OTE)
A pullback zone between the 62 and 79 percent retracements of the dealing swing, used as a deep entry location.
Market Maker Model
An SMC pattern that describes a consolidation, a stop sweep, and then a reversal leg back across the range.
Institutional Order Flow
The actual or inferred participation of large accounts, as distinct from a candle pattern given that name.
Change of Character (CHoCH)
The first break of structure against the current trend, a possible change of side.
Break of Structure (BOS)
A push that breaks the prior swing in the direction of the existing trend.