Identify higher highs, lower lows, protected swings, breaks of structure, and reversals with interactive candlestick charts. The test at the end is concrete: label an unmarked chart bullish, bearish, ranging, or in transition, and name the level that would prove the label wrong.
Start with obvious swing points. Do not label every candle; label the moves that visibly changed direction.
Each candle summarises one span of time — an hour, a day. Its body runs from the open to the close; the thin lines above and below it, the wicks, reach to the high and low the span touched. A body in the up colour closed above its open; one in the down colour closed below it.
A wick shows where price went; the close shows where it was accepted when the span ended. Every rule in this course keys on the close — “a close below the low”, “a close beyond the edge” — because a wick through a level that closes back on the right side of it is a level tested, not a level broken.
A swing high is a candle whose high stands above the highs on either side of it; a swing low is the mirror. Structure is read from the sequence of these turning points, not from single candles: label the moves that visibly changed direction and leave the rest unlabelled.
The latest meaningful higher low is usually the level buyers must defend.
Read as buyers willing to pay more than they did last time: each dip is met before it reaches the previous low. A close below the low being defended is what would end that reading.
The latest meaningful lower high is usually the level sellers must defend.
Read as sellers willing to accept less than they did last time: each bounce is capped before it reaches the previous high. A close above the high being defended is what would end that reading.
Inside a range, apparent trends often fail. The edges matter more than the middle.
Read as both sides defending the edges and neither defending the middle: buying appears near the low, selling near the high. It stops reading as a range when price closes beyond an edge instead of turning back inside.
Switch scenarios, move one swing at a time, and reveal the logic behind continuation and reversal.
A meaningful swing breaks in the direction of the current trend. In a bullish market, a new high above the previous high is bullish continuation evidence.
The first meaningful break against the existing trend. Treat it as a warning; confirmation normally requires the opposite swing sequence to form.
In bullish structure, this is the higher low that launched the move through the prior high. A close below it weakens or invalidates the bullish thesis.
In bearish structure, this is the lower high that launched the move through the prior low. A close above it weakens or invalidates the bearish thesis.
Use the higher timeframe for direction and the lower timeframe for setup timing. Multi-Timeframe Market Structure Lab examines the same idea at full depth.
Read as buyers defending each higher low on the daily: the start of the last advance has not been given back. A daily close below the marked protected low would end that reading.
Read as sellers controlling this pullback: each bounce stops below the previous hourly high while the daily low still holds. That is the two timeframes disagreeing, not the daily reading failing.
“Daily structure is bullish. The 1-hour chart is pulling back bearishly. I wait for the 1-hour to reclaim its protected high before considering a bullish entry.”
Choose the dominant structure. After checking, the important swings and explanation appear — and a second question asks for the level that would prove your label wrong.
Read Weekly/Daily direction first. Use 4-hour or 1-hour structure to plan the setup.
Use a candle close beyond the structural level for consistency. A wick can be a sweep, not a break.
“Above X, bullish. Below X, invalid.” Conditional plans are more useful than predictions.
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