Lessons › Market structure › Swing highs and swing lows

World 2 · Market structure · lesson 3 · level 1

Swing highs and swing lows

A swing high is a peak with lower candles on both sides, and a swing low is a valley with higher candles on both sides.

In one line

Peaks and valleys hold the whole map of a chart. Can you find the turning points?

Explained simply

Imagine walking across hills, where the tops are peaks and the bottoms are valleys. On a chart, a swing high is a peak with lower candles on both sides, and a swing low is a valley with higher candles on both sides. These turning points are the landmarks traders use to read everything else.

The lesson

A swing high is a candle whose high is above the highs of the candles on each side, often checked with two candles on each side. A swing low is the mirror: a low below its neighbours' lows. These turning points are the building blocks of trends, support, resistance and most chart patterns. A swing point is confirmed only after the candles to its right have closed.

A worked example

Illustrative example: five candles in a row have highs of 48, 51, 55, 52 and 50. The middle high of 55 is above the two highs before it (48 and 51) and the two after it (52 and 50), so it is a swing high, standing 3 above its highest neighbour (55 minus 52). The check needs 5 candles in total (2 before, the candle itself, 2 after), so you only know it is a swing high after the fifth candle closes.

The same idea at four levels

1. Beginner. A swing high is a peak with lower candles on both sides, and a swing low is a valley with higher candles on both sides.
2. Foundation. Traders often check two candles on each side, so a swing high must be higher than the two candles before it and the two after it.
3. Intermediate. A swing point is known only after the candles on its right close, so it always appears a little late.
4. Advanced. Swing points build trends, support and resistance, so marking only the clear ones keeps the chart readable.
5. Expert. Experts match the swing size to their timeframe and ignore tiny wiggles, because marking every bump creates false structure.

Mistakes to avoid

• Marking every tiny wiggle as a swing point.
• Forgetting that a swing point is confirmed only after the candles to its right close.
• Mixing swing points from different timeframes on one chart.

Goal of this lesson: Mark swing highs and swing lows, the turning points that define market structure.