Market structure: highs, lows and trend direction

Market structure describes the sequence of swings, meaning clear local highs and lows. An uptrend is a series of higher highs and higher lows, and a downtrend is a series of lower highs and lower lows. In ICT/SMC (Inner Circle Trader / Smart Money Concepts), structure is used to determine direction, and breaks of it are called BOS (break of structure) and CHoCH (change of character).

A swing has no single definition: it depends on the timeframe and the number of candles counted as confirmation, so two people will draw different structure. Structure also exists on many scales at once, internal and external, which can show opposite directions. It describes the past rather than predicting the future, and breaks of it can be false.