Reading the market with the terminal 2 / 12
Reading the market with the terminal · With the terminalLesson 2 of 12

Liquidity and structure on the terminal's chart

Equal highs, a candle that pokes above them and closes back, a break of the last swing low. The terminal labels each of these on the chart and lists them in the panel. Together they tell the story of who got caught.

You will learn
  • What EQH, BSL and a sweep mark, and why stops rest there
  • How the terminal tells a change of character from a break of structure
  • Why the protected low or high matters for a stop

Before you start: The Smart Money Concepts lessons on structure breaks and sweeps go deeper into the rules.

The story in four labels

With the SMC layer on, the terminal draws liquidity — equal highs and lows (EQH, EQL) and clusters of swing highs and lows (BSL, SSL) — as dashed lines from where they formed. It marks a sweep when a candle trades beyond a pool and both opens and closes back inside. It labels a change of character when price closes beyond the last swing against the structure, and a break of structure when it does so in the structure's direction. The panel's Recent events lists the same things in words, newest first, with how many candles ago.

Liquidity and structure — the modelled week from Tuesday to Friday: equal highs where stops rest; a candle that runs above them and closes back below (a sweep); a close below the last swing low that turns the structure down (ChoCH) and the protected high it leaves; a second break down (BOS); swept lows, a heavy-volume candle at the low and a change of character up; a long's stop against the protected low; and the break of structure up that followed.

Reading it together

A sweep says the orders beyond a level were filled and the move did not hold. A change of character says the last swing failed. Neither predicts the next move by itself — the Smart Money Concepts module checks how often they were followed by a turn on real BTC data — but in sequence they describe a market in which one side ran out of fuel.

The structure also answers a question every trade has: where would the idea be wrong? In an uptrend by structure that is a close below the protected low. A stop placed closer, beyond the nearest level, may be hit while the structure still holds — the panel's note says how far away the protected low is, in ATR.

Takeaways
  1. EQH/EQL and BSL/SSL mark prices where stop orders tend to rest.
  2. A sweep: a candle beyond the pool that opens and closes back inside.
  3. ChoCH is the first break against the structure; BOS a break with it. Each moves the protected low or high.
  4. A close beyond the protected extreme is where the structure would turn: compare it with your stop.

Open BTC in the terminal with the SMC layer on and read Recent events from the top

Further reading

Education only, not financial advice · Updated 28 Oct 2026 · Data: Binance · Report a mistake