Market structure
Market structure is the pattern of successive highs and lows on a price chart, used to describe whether a market is trending up, trending down, or ranging.
Market structure is the most basic descriptive framework in technical trading. A market making higher highs and higher lows is described as being in an uptrend; lower highs and lower lows describe a downtrend; a market doing neither is ranging. That is the entire core idea.
Its usefulness is descriptive rather than predictive. Structure tells you what price has already done, in compact language. It does not tell you what price will do next, and no arrangement of highs and lows carries a probability guarantee. Traders who treat structure as a description generally use it well; traders who treat it as a forecast tend to over-trade it.
Why definitions vary so much
There is no standard body defining what counts as a valid swing high or low, so the same chart can be labelled several defensible ways depending on which timeframe you read and how many bars you require either side of a pivot. This is why two competent traders can disagree about structure on the same chart without either being wrong.
Practical consequence: if your structure read changes depending on which timeframe you happen to open first, you do not have a rule — you have a preference. Fix the timeframe and the swing definition before you look, not after.
Related terms
Maintained by Jared Sinclair, Founder · Syrax Global FZCO · Definitions are educational, not financial advice.
Knowing the vocabulary is the easy part.
Every term here can be learned in an afternoon. Applying them consistently under pressure is the part that decides outcomes — and the part we measure.