Swings

Price never moves in straight lines — it advances, pulls back, advances again. Each turning point is a swing: a swing high where a rise reverses, a swing low where a fall reverses. Zoom out on any chart and it's only swings — everything else (indicators, patterns, moving averages) is math derived from these turning points. Structure trading reads the source directly.

The alphabet has four letters. In a rising market: each rally exceeds the last peak — a Higher High (HH) — and each pullback bottoms above the last trough — a Higher Low (HL). In a falling market, the mirror: Lower Highs (LH) and Lower Lows (LL).

This gives you the first objective definition of trend you've probably ever had: an uptrend IS a sequence of HH+HL; a downtrend IS a sequence of LH+LL. Not "price above some average," not a feeling — a checkable, yes/no pattern of swing labels. When neither sequence holds (highs and lows overlapping sideways), you have a range — the third state, and Chapter 15's whole subject.

Now connect the alphabet to Modules 1–2, because this is where structure stops being lines and becomes behavior. A Higher Low is a behavioral event: price fell, and buyers stepped in before it reached the previous trough — someone was willing to pay up earlier this time. Repeated HLs = repeated evidence of demand arriving progressively sooner = the queue-eating of Chapter 2 tilted persistently one way = frequently the sliced, patient buying of Chapter 7's institutions, printed on the chart. The alphabet is literally participant behavior, compressed.

Two disciplines that keep the alphabet honest: pick a swing rule and keep it — decide what counts as a swing on your timeframe (e.g., a high flanked by lower highs on both sides, or a minimum % move) so your labels aren't mood-dependent; and respect the fractal problem — a 5-minute downtrend lives inside a daily uptrend routinely, so structure labels are always timeframe-stamped: "HH on the hourly" is a complete sentence, "HH" alone is not.