Market structure helps you understand who controls price right now — buyer or seller — and therefore which side to work from. In real trading the classic read is often not enough, so we cover the base, its limit, and how to refine it.
The market has two directions: up and down. Take an up-move as the example — a down-move is simply the mirror. In an uptrend, price prints higher highs and holds its lows, which tells us the initiative stays with the buyer.
When price takes out the previous high and closes its body above it, we treat that as BOS — Break of Structure — a confirmation that the current structure continues. If instead price breaks the established low and closes its body below it, that is CHOCH — Change of Character — a shift that may point to a possible reversal. CHOCH is not always a final trend change, but it is the first sign that price behaviour has shifted and the structure needs to be re-assessed.
If the structure stays bullish, the logic is simple: priority stays with buys. In that case we use the range between the confirmed low and high as the working area for a trade, and we look for the entry point inside that range with a trading model — covered in a separate lesson. The model helps identify the moment the correction has likely finished and the market is ready to continue the impulse with the trend.
At a basic level this looks clean. But once you backtest and study many examples, an important limit shows up: the market rarely moves in a straight line. Price can often be read through three phases — accumulation, manipulation, distribution — and the manipulation phase is what usually breaks the structure read.
Price may break the nearest structural low, create the impression that the uptrend is over, push participants into selling, then reverse and continue up. Formally we see a broken low, but in fact it doesn't necessarily mean a real change of direction. In those situations the classic read, without extra context, gets interpreted too rigidly.
This is where an important refinement comes in. Not every nearest low should be treated as a true structural low. Sometimes that low serves another function — it acts as an inducement to push participants into the opposite side before the main move continues. That inducement is called IDM.
In simpler terms, the market may first provoke part of the participants into selling, to use their orders as fuel before a further rise. So the classic structure answers where the market confirmed a move, while the IDM refinement helps tell which low is really the anchor of the trend and which may be part of the manipulation phase. IDM usually sits in front of the liquidity through which the market reaches the larger participant's true zone of interest.
Accounting for IDM lets you mark structure more precisely and cuts the number of cases where an ordinary manipulation sweep is mistaken for a full trend change. It does not mean the classic structure is wrong — it means the real market often benefits from adding the context of liquidity and manipulation. That way you keep direction better, don't lose context too early, and make more measured decisions along the trend.
Market structure is how the FocusProfit methodology decides which side to work from. The FocusProfit Trade Model indicator marks structure automatically and notifies you when a new trade range appears on the working timeframe — but the indicator does not replace understanding the logic, it just helps apply it faster, with fewer errors.
See the full framework in the methodology section, and watch structure read on live instruments in the market analysis.
Analysis, ranges, structure — inside the FocusProfit Club private Telegram group.
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