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Reviewing Basic Market Structure and Reversals

When you’re studying a price chart to assess trading opportunities, what is your eye drawn to first?

Is it the indicators?  Is it moving averages?  How about candles?

And when you are looking to put on a trade, are you taking a moment to address the context in which you’re placing the trade?

Is it a counter-trend fade?  A pro-trend retracement?  A breakout from a consolidation pattern (like a rectangle or triangle?)  And when playing the breakout, are you looking to play a trend reversal breakout or a trend continuity breakout play?

Mike Bellafiore of SMB Capital recently shared a candid post from a trader about the importance of understanding Market Structure that inspired me to share a few tips on how to discern the current situation.

Let’s take a quick moment to review the foundational principle regarding trend structure that guides your answers to all these questions.

Here is the current “Structure” Chart of the Dow Jones over the last year:


Click for full-size (large) image.

Let’s step back to the most basic aspect of a price chart – price itself.

Stretching back to Dow Theory, an Up-Trend is defined as a series of higher swing highs and swing lows, while a Down-Trend is similarly defined as a series of lower swing highs and lower swing lows.

By extension, in an Up-Trend, the “Up” swings tend to last longer in both duration (time) and price (percentage moves) when compared to down/retracement swings in an Up-Trend, and vice-versa for a Down-Trend.

Translating that to trading opportunities, the BEST opportunities tend to occur IN the direction of the prevailing trend (relative to your timeframe).

However, not all trends last forever, and all trends will eventually reverse.

By definition, a TREND REVERSAL occurs when the following conditions are met:

When reversing an Up-Trend, price must make a Lower Low, Lower High, THEN swing back down to TAKE OUT (trade under) the recent Lower Low.

When reversing a Down-Trend, price must make a Higher High, Higher Low, THEN swing back to TAKE OUT (trade above) the recent Higher High.

In other words, a Structural Trend Reversal is a Three-Step price process – from this, we define not only Market Structure, but by proxy trading opportunities.

In the chart above, the first Trend Reversal Down occurred on August 2rd, 2011 when price broke and closed under the late June swing lows, the first lower low.

Notice that price formed a Lower High in July THEN swung back to take out the prior swing low to create the official Daily Chart Trend Reversal signal.

After a continuation down-move into October, price again reversed to the upside in mid-October after breaking above two mini-swing highs from July, forming a tight swing low on October 18th, and then breaking the final mini-swing high at the 11,700 level.

Price is currently labeled as a structural Up-Trend with a key “Make or Break” resistance challenge at the 12,200 recent swing-high level where we are now.

These are larger-scale, Structural Reversals on the Daily Chart.

A major key to understanding Market Structure – a big secret to trading – is the realization that Higher Timeframe Structure is BUILT by Lower Timeframe Structure.

In other words, the recent up-swing from 11,250 was built by – or comprised – its own Trend Reversal Signal and series of progressive swing highs and lows.

Let’s see that on the 15-min Intraday Chart:

The 15-min chart above shows us the November to present period which consists of a Structural (intraday) Down-Trend which reversed (ahead of the big end-of-November move, by the way) to an Up-Trend as labeled.

When viewing this chart, put it in context of the Daily Chart above – what we’re seeing is a simple down-swing which reversed into an up-swing in the context of a brand-new Up-Trend Reversal.

Even after the Trend Reversal AND the end-of-November rally, price has continued its intraday bullish structure with an additional progression of shorter-term swing highs and lows so far in December.

Continue to watch the current structure – particularly as it interacts with the key prior resistance swing high at 12,200 – for any breakdown in the swing high/low structure above (namely, a move under the 12,000 area that results in a future lower swing high).

You can also see the educational example of how the intraday structure reversed from Up to Down on November 17th (notice the sequence of Lower High, Lower Low, Lower High, then a breakdown of the 11,950 Lower Low).

Price declined – in basic structure – towards the 11,250 low after triggering an official intraday reversal under 12,000.

Identifying or Quantifying Market Structure is just the beginning – from there, you’ll look for confirmations/non-confirmations (including divergences) and other signals from your favorite indicators or methods to help you find low-risk, high-probability trades in the context of developing – or reversing – price structure.

However, if you’re not at least thinking about market structure, you could easily place yourself on the wrong side of a trending move and pay an unnecessary price for it.

Corey Rosenbloom, CMT
Afraid to Trade.com

Follow Corey on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/afraidtotrade

Corey’s new book The Complete Trading Course (Wiley Finance) is now available!

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10 Comments

  1. Thanks for this post it really hit the spot.  My last trade I ignored the trend structure change and paid the price for it. I have been inconsistent and overal unsucessful for years.  But my pasion to learn and improve keep driving me forward.  I have bought your book and have been studying it and trying to apply it.  I'm begining to see my impulsive style of trading and trying to catch tops and bottoms is causing most of my losses.  Eventhough your book is heading me in the right direction, I have to kick these trigger happy bad habbits before I can be successful.  But anyway, thanks for your book.  It is the best and most complete education that I have ever received in the market.  Your work has been a true inspiration for me.  thanks.  Keith

  2. The chart needs more explaining on the chart otherwise only those already into the topic can apprehend it.

  3. Why July lower higher is important? Isn't the first lower high is around June 21st?
    October 18th swing low is not higher than any swings in July. So I simply don't undestand the whole topic at all.

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