Mitigation Block

Mitigation, in ordinary speech, means reducing a position. In this framework a mitigation block is a candle zone tied to a swing that failed to continue. The usual bullish version: price makes a low, bounces, returns toward that low but does not take it out, and the last up-close candle before the return is marked as the block that will be "mitigated" when price revisits it. The story is that traders trapped or filled on the first leg reduce risk on the return. As with other SMC zones, the story is optional and the geometry is specific. You are marking the origin of a leg that did not break the prior extreme, and you expect a reaction if price comes back.

Identify a swing that sets a low, a rally, and a pullback that holds above that low. The mitigation block is the last bullish candle before the pullback, in the common teaching, or the candle at the origin of the second leg. Teachings differ. Write down which candle you use and stop shopping. The zone is in play on a later return, not during the pullback that defined it. A return that closes through the block means this mitigation idea is done. Do not confuse it with an order block, which requires a break of structure in the impulse. A mitigation block is specifically about a failure to break the opposite side.

Treat the zone as a retest candidate in the direction of the original hold. If the market held a higher low and later comes back to the origin of the rally from that higher low, you have a location. Combine it with the higher-timeframe level under it. A mitigation block floating in the middle of a range, touching nothing else, is a candle you have decorated. Prefer the version that sits on a level you can explain without the term.

Using mitigation block, order block, and breaker for one candle so that whatever happens you were in a pattern. Also adopting a new educator's candle rule mid-trade. And equating the word mitigation with proof that someone is covering a position. You cannot see their inventory.

The definition is less stable across SMC sources than the fair value gap or the break of structure. If you cannot state your candle rule without a diagram from a particular course, you do not have a transferable concept yet. The pattern also ignores volume. A "mitigation" candle on tiny trade is not evidence of a position being reduced. It is a candle.