Market structure
Where a trend stops being one.
Define a trend as a sequence of swing highs and swing lows, name the exact price at which that sequence stops being true, and tell a warning — a lower high — from a break of structure: a close through the last higher low. Recognise the third state, the trading range, where no sequence exists at all, and replace "it looks bullish" with a claim that has a timeframe, a price and a way of being wrong.
5 chapters · 5 quiz questions · 13 terms · included with a plan
Otus, on this module
"The trend is your friend" is the most repeated sentence in trading, and almost nobody who says it can name the moment the friendship ended. That is not a discipline problem. It is a missing definition — and without one the phrase cannot be wrong, which means it cannot be useful. Supply the definition and the phrase finally has a price attached.
The chapters
Each module ends with you doing what it taught — a written answer Otus reads, and a quiz.
- 01 · Read
A trend is a sequence, not a slope
Higher highs and higher lows — and why the lows carry the definition.
- 02 · Read
What breaks the sequence
A lower high is a warning. A close through the last higher low is the break.
- 03 · Read
Why "the trend is your friend" is useless on its own
What is missing from the phrase, and the third state it cannot describe.
- 04 · Study
Find it in this week's study
Open "How each session behaved" and read one row against its notch.
- 05 · Write
In your own words
One sentence with a number in it. Otus reads it.
- 06 · Quiz
Five questions
A wrong answer still pays. It costs the combo, not the XP.
13 terms this module defines
The same definitions Otus uses in the lessons. All of them are in the trading glossary.
- Market structure
- The pattern formed by successive swing highs and swing lows on a stated timeframe: rising in an uptrend, falling in a downtrend, flat in a trading range.
- Swing point
- A swing high is a peak with lower highs either side of it; a swing low is a trough with higher lows either side. How big a peak counts is a judgement, and the timeframe makes it.
- Pullback
- The counter-move between two pushes in a trend. In an uptrend, where a pullback stops is what creates the next higher low.
- Higher high
- A swing high above the previous swing high. Evidence that an uptrend has been occurring — backward-looking, and not where the definition can fail.
- Higher low
- A swing low above the previous swing low. The half of an uptrend that gives a specific price at which the sequence can be refuted.
- Lower low
- A swing low below the previous swing low. Together with lower highs, it defines a downtrend.
- Sequence
- Higher highs with higher lows, or lower lows with lower highs. A trend defined as something that can stop, rather than as a slope that can only be described afterwards.
- Last higher low
- The most recent pullback low in an uptrend. The single price at which a close beyond it makes the sequence stop being a true description of the chart.
- Lower high
- A push that stops short of the previous peak. Real information that buying has faded, and not by itself the end of an uptrend.
- Break of structure
- A close through the last higher low in an uptrend, or the last lower high in a downtrend. The moment the sequence stops being true. Often shortened to BOS.
- Trading range
- Sideways movement between a range high and a range low, with no sequence of higher or lower swings. Its edges are levels, judged by reactions like any other.
- No sequence
- Highs and lows at roughly the same prices. Neither trend definition applies, so neither "intact" nor "ended" is an available description.
- Timeframe shopping
- Switching to a different timeframe after the stated one stops agreeing with a view. The quickest way to turn a definition back into an opinion.
Finishing it pays 150 XP and 3 keys on the game board, on top of what each chapter earns. XP measures what you learned — never what you earned. How levels work.
Education only. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell anything; the school teaches reading charts, never predictions.
Start with lesson one.
The first modules, Otus as your tutor and the game board are free. No card needed.