Imbalance (Fair Value Gap)

An imbalance is a stretch of chart price moved through too quickly, leaving a gap between candles where buying and selling were not in equilibrium. In Smart Money terms it is also called a Fair Value Gap (FVG). The market tends to return into an imbalance to restore balance and redistribute volume before the next move.

Technically an imbalance shows up as an unfilled gap between the wicks of neighbouring candles around a strong impulse candle. Between swings, price often travels precisely through these zones, so an imbalance acts both as a reference for where price may return and as part of a zone of interest. In our method, imbalance inversion matters: when an opposing imbalance is broken and absorbed, it is one argument that control has passed to the other side.

We don't guess which imbalance will play out — we read the current structure and act only on confirmation. The Trade Model indicator helps you see how price moves from liquidity to liquidity through imbalances inside a range.