Market Structure
Glossary · Technical Analysis
Market structure is the sequence of swing highs and swing lows a chart makes: higher highs and higher lows in an uptrend, lower highs and lower lows in a downtrend, overlapping swings in a range. It is the most basic read there is, and most indicators are ways of describing it with a formula.
"Before any indicator: is it making higher lows or lower highs? If you cannot answer that from the chart, no oscillator will save you."
A swing high is a bar whose high stands above the bars on each side; a swing low is the mirror. Connect them and the trend reads itself: an uptrend is intact while each pullback holds above the previous swing low. The last swing low is the level that matters — lose it on a close and the structure has changed. Our level engine finds swings the same way, with three bars on each side, and clusters them into the levels it draws.
The tell traders miss: structure is timeframe-specific. A 15-minute downtrend inside a 4h uptrend is a pullback, not a reversal, until the 4h swing low goes. Trade the structure of the timeframe you hold on and use the lower one only for entries. A break of structure on the higher timeframe is the event; everything on the lower timeframe is noise until then.
Read the structure off a live chart
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Questions
- What is Market Structure in crypto trading?
- Market structure is the sequence of swing highs and swing lows a chart makes: higher highs and higher lows in an uptrend, lower highs and lower lows in a downtrend, overlapping swings in a range. It is the most basic read there is, and most indicators are ways of describing it with a formula.
- How would a trader say it?
- Before any indicator: is it making higher lows or lower highs? If you cannot answer that from the chart, no oscillator will save you.
Part of the Crypto Jargon glossary — every term, decoded the way a trader would say it.
Crypto Jargon
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