The Glossary

Markets & mechanics (forex basics)

The pre-method vocabulary from the Markets & Mechanics primer — what a complete beginner needs before the strategy terms below.

• Forex (FX) — the 24/5, decentralized market for trading one currency against another; the largest, most liquid market there is. Markets & Mechanics §1
• CFD (contract for difference) — how most retail traders access these markets: you settle the price difference with your broker without owning the underlying. Go long or short, with leverage. (Not available to US retail.) Markets & Mechanics §1 Futures · Contracts & Risk §8
• Currency pair · base / quote — a ratio of two currencies (EUR/USD). The base is what you buy/sell; the quote is the currency the price — and your pips — are measured in. Markets & Mechanics §3
• Long / short — buy to profit if price rises (long) or sell first to profit if it falls (short). In FX a short is just buying the quote with the base — no borrow needed. Markets & Mechanics §2
• Pip / pipette — the standard unit of movement: the 4th decimal (0.0001), or the 2nd (0.01) on JPY pairs. A pipette is a tenth of a pip (the extra decimal some brokers show). Markets & Mechanics §4
• Point — the unit for gold and index CFDs (which move in whole points, valued at $-per-point) rather than pips. Markets & Mechanics §4 Futures · Contracts & Risk §5
• Lot · pip value — position size: standard (100,000 units), mini (10,000), micro (1,000). Sets what a pip is worth — on a USD-quoted pair ≈ $10 / $1 / $0.10 per pip. Size in micro (0.01-lot) steps. Markets & Mechanics §5 Lot Size Calculator
• Leverage — controlling a large position with a small deposit (e.g. 30:1). Headroom, not risk — your risk is size × stop × pip value. Markets & Mechanics §6 Futures · Contracts & Risk §6
• Margin · margin call · stop-out — the collateral held for an open position (used vs free margin). If losses eat into it, the broker warns (call) then force-closes (stop-out). Size so you're never near it. Markets & Mechanics §6 Futures · Contracts & Risk §6
• Spread (bid / ask) — the gap between the sell (bid) and buy (ask) price; the broker's baked-in fee. You buy at the ask, sell at the bid, so every trade starts slightly offside — and the spread widens your effective stop distance. Markets & Mechanics §7
• Swap — the overnight financing paid or received for holding past the daily rollover (triple on Wednesdays). Mostly irrelevant intraday. Markets & Mechanics §7
• Order types — market (fill now), limit (fill at a better price), stop (fill on a breakout), plus stop-loss (safety exit — always) and take-profit (auto-close at target). Markets & Mechanics §9
• Sessions — Sydney / Tokyo / London / New York; the London–NY overlap (~8 AM–noon ET) carries the most volume. This method trades the New York session. Markets & Mechanics §8 Market Hours tool Futures · Charting §2

Structure & price action

• Body closure — a candle body closing beyond a level. Structure and breaks are defined by bodies, never wicks. Structure & Liquidity §1
• Structure — the trend skeleton, read on body closes. Bearish = lower low (body close) → lower high → body close below the low; inverted for bullish. Structure & Liquidity §1
• Sweep — price trades through a level with the wick only. Liquidity is taken; nothing structural is proven. Information, not confirmation. Structure & Liquidity §1
• Break — a candle body closes beyond the level. Acceptance — the structural narrative changes. Structure & Liquidity §1 Supply & Demand Zones §3
• The asymmetry — a wick is enough to fail a zone, but never enough to break structure. Supply & Demand Zones §3
• True leg — the real impulse leg, defined by its swing high and low. Everything between is internal structure. Internal Structure §1
• Internal vs swing structure — breaks inside the true leg are internal and are not trend changes; only the leg's extremes define the trend. Internal Structure §2
• Structural liquidity — a real pivot: a high that broke a low with the body (or inverted). No pivot → nothing to sweep. Structure & Liquidity §2 Entry Model §4
• Front leg — after substantial price action, stale zones aren't traded; the new leg builds its own zones. Entry Model §3

Zones (Points of Interest)

• Zone — a supply or demand area, drawn off the opposite-colour candle before the impulse. Exists only once the candle closes beyond it. Supply & Demand Zones §1
• Imbalance — the inefficiency left by the impulse away from a zone; a zone can be enlarged to take the POI plus the adjacent imbalance (never the whole range). Order Flow §6
• Mitigation — price returning to tap a zone. The mitigation point is where the pullback began; liquidity must form to its right. Supply & Demand Zones §4
• Flip zone — the core POI: an opposing zone gives a reaction → reaction leg → failure, and flips. Drawn at the extreme of the reaction leg — the last opposite-colour candle before the move that caused the failure — never across the old failed zone. Still valid when the reaction leg is bigger than the main leg. Order Flow & the Flip §4
• Liquidity POI — a zone created when price sweeps liquidity then breaks structure (a "protected" high/low). Valid while unmitigated, refined (nested inside the zone above it: 1m inside your 15m POI, 15m inside a 4H/daily zone, never a standalone 1m zone), ideally with inducement at its edge. POI Selection §6
• Protected high / low — the high/low created by a sweep-plus-structure-break; the invalidation sits beyond it. Risk Filter §2
• Inducement — structural liquidity (a level that broke something) resting close to a zone's edge. Distant resting liquidity is just liquidity, not inducement. POI Selection §6
• Chain — a series of several (3+) stacked mitigations up or down a leg; tradeable while targets remain open. POI Selection §5
• Extreme / decisional — the leg's origin (extreme) and the mid-leg zone that began the final push (decisional). POI Selection §5
• LPOD / LPOS — the Last Point Of Demand / Supply prior to an action (mitigation, sweep, or structural break). Positionally significant by definition. Order Flow & the Flip §5 Order Flow §4
• CPB (catalyst for a pullback) — a zone you expect to trade through; at most it pulls price back into a real POI. Not a tradeable POI. Requires opposing HTF order flow in control. Weekly Outlook §6
• Refinement — dropping a timeframe to find a tighter zone nested inside an HTF one — never to invent a new narrative. A 1-minute zone is valid only as a refinement. Supply & Demand Zones §5 POI Selection §9
• Wicks-to-wicks zone — often gives a reaction, rarely follows through. Reference only. POI Selection §6

Order flow

• Order flow — who is in control right now, read through the behaviour of zones (reactions, failures, respects). Distinct from structure, which records where price has been. Order Flow §1
• Order flow shift — a confirmed change of control, proven by exactly one of two triggers (below). Order Flow §4
• FLOR — First Level Of Respect — the first opposing zone that holds after the LPOD/LPOS break (or a reaction-failure). The break (or failure) creates the zone; the hold is what makes the read pro — "no floor until it holds." After an LPOD/LPOS break the shift is already confirmed and the hold confirms the environment; after a reaction-failure the hold is what completes the shift itself. A respect event, never the break itself. Order Flow §4 Order Flow §4.4
• Hold / additional break — how you know a zone has held: price leaves it and makes an additional break of the next opposing zone or structure point (the low, for supply; the high, for demand), usually forming a new zone as it goes. A tap or a 1m entry from the zone isn't the hold. No body-close or pip rule; if it's unclear, wait. Order Flow §4.4
• Trigger 1 — LPOD/LPOS break — a body-close break of the LPOD/LPOS prior to the action. Positional, not visual. The break sets the shift in motion; you're pro only once a zone in the new direction holds (the FLOR). The first zone after the break is valid, not yet pro. Order Flow §4
• Trigger 2 — reaction-failure + first respect — an opposing zone reacts and fails, then a new zone in the new direction holds — the FLOR (first level of respect). A sweep does not count as a respect. The floor is the zone formed after the failure, not a pullback into an existing demand. Until that zone holds, a trade from it is a risky DCE at best — prefer the next zone; a flip formed off a wick reaction is an anchor, not an entry. Order Flow §4
• Reaction failure (two senses) — (a) a zone that reacts then fails: price reacts to a zone, then the zone itself fails — this is Trigger 2; (b) a reaction-point failure: the reaction point fails but the zone hasn't — this only reaffirms control when already pro order flow, and never establishes a new direction on its own. Order Flow §4 Entry Model §4
• The asymmetry rule — one side losing control does not put the other side in control. The market is often neutral — wait, don't switch. Order Flow & the Flip §3
• Supporting state — "zones holding" / "pro order flow" describe the situation after a shift; they are evidence, never a trigger. Name the event. Order Flow §3
• Pro order flow — the shift is confirmed and a prior zone has already held (the "first level of respect"). The first zone after a shift is valid but not yet pro. Order Flow §5

Targets

• IRL (internal range liquidity) / the void — the internal structural liquidity building inside a leg. Counter-trend price action is IRL being built; it becomes the target once order flow realigns. Internal Structure §4 Target Selection §2
• Void fill — first IRL piece breaks → opposing order flow takes control → the remaining void is the magnet. Internal Structure §4
• Weak high / low — a valid target, but only in order: (1) it failed to break the opposing structural point, then (2) order flow took control toward it. Structure & Liquidity §3 Target Selection §2
• Strong high / low — a level that broke something with a body. Sweepable liquidity, never targeted through. Old strong levels decay into IRL once the trend context flips. Structure & Liquidity §3 Target Selection §6
• Target expiry — once a target is taken, the idea is finished. Rebuild targets before re-engaging, and continue in segments. Target Selection §7
• Post-target continuation — pressing an idea after its target has been taken. A downgrade modifier: valid at best, never high probability. Rebuild a new target first. Target Selection §7 Trade Grade §3
• Pre-empted vs confirmed target — a target is pre-empted when you trade toward it before order flow has confirmed it: the first zone after a shift, or a fresh low that hasn't yet failed to take out the opposing high and had supply reassert toward it after it printed. Valid at best. It's confirmed once pro order flow points at it, which makes the trade high-probability eligible. Target Selection §4 Trade Grade §3

Candle profiling

• Candle profiling — reading the current daily/weekly/monthly candle against the previous one, for context — never intraday, never dictating the bias alone. Candle Profiling
• One-side rule — single breaks dominate (~72% of GBPUSD days, ~79% of weeks; ~84–88% take at least one side). Once one side is taken, don't expect the other within the same candle — and from the prior range alone the direction is a ~50/50 coin flip. Candle Profiling §1
• Inside bar — takes neither side (~15.8% of GBPUSD days; ~1 in 6). Both directions open; the precondition for an outside bar — and on the tape slightly more common than one. Candle Profiling §2
• Outside bar — takes both sides (~12.3% of GBPUSD days; ~1 in 8, the rarest of the three). Usually follows an inside bar; never predicted; back-to-back outside bars are very unlikely. Candle Profiling §3
• Daily wick logic — if today already took the previous daily high, a sell just prints a bigger wick — you'd be predicting wick size. Counter-candle trades are downgraded. Candle Profiling §4
• Catalyst timing — the catalyst is the turn that sets a period's direction (where its directional extreme prints); it forms early — first week of the month, Monday/Tuesday of the week, Asia/London of the day (NY only on high-impact NY news). A different sense of "catalyst" from a CPB ("catalyst for a pullback"). Candle Profiling §5
• Range budget — each pair's typical daily range (GU ~80–100 pips). Once spent, further trades catch the tail end. Daily Context §5

Execution & risk

• The 1-minute entry model — mitigation → liquidity → sweep → trigger → execution. Confirms the 15m zone is holding; it does not find a separate trade. Entry Model §2
• Single / double confirmation — single: the first 1m entry model after the sweep (only when pro order flow + aligned + clean arrival). Double: let the first 1m zone hold, then trade the next — a DCE (double confirmation entry). Trade Grade §6
• Trigger (entry) — a flip (reaction + failure) OR a liquidity POI (sweep + structure break, no reaction). Entry Model §4
• Vicinity execution / same stop, same trade — limit at the zone and market on the failed reaction are the same trade if the stop covers the same invalidation. A planned late fill is not FOMO. Entry Model §7
• FOMO — the absence of a pre-built narrative, not lateness. A trade traced to the outlook is planned, however late the fill. Entry Model §7
• Invalidation point — where the idea is wrong; the stop sits beyond the most recent swept liquidity, plus a generous buffer. Everything inside that region is noise. Risk Filter §2
• Conservative-low rule — when another low (a high, for a short) sits close to the one you swept, or to the top of the zone you're trading from, put the stop beyond the further one, then add the buffer. Only if the RR still clears; if it doesn't, the trade doesn't. Risk Filter §6
• Split entry — two entries on one idea (for example, market on the failed reaction, then a second at the flip) taken as two trades at half risk each. They share the idea's stop, so the idea still risks one R. Entry Model §7
• R-multiple — risk measured in units of the stop distance (1R = the stop). Targets and management are expressed in R. Risk & R-Multiples §1
• The 2R rule — break even at the perfect-model 2R; target the nearest reference at or beyond 3R (not 2.5R); runner only when HTF-aligned. (There is no "1R" trigger.) Execution & Pivot §2
• Proximity veto — if a relevant zone sits so close that 2R can't be reached before tagging it, skip the trade or wait for that zone to break. Risk Filter §4
• Trade grade — High probability (order flow + confirmed target + pro POI) / Valid (one component missing) / Invalid (neither — no trade). Trade Grade §2
• The LPOD risk rule — never sell the bounce out of a holding pro-order-flow LPOD after a sweep (sweep vs break is unknowable in the moment). Be in before it and risk-off, or wait for the break. POI Selection §7

Process

• Weekly outlook — the pre-commitment artifact: narrative + expiry, zone classification, staged targets, the pullback question, and the pivot — all decided before the week opens. Weekly Outlook §1
• The three outcomes — a deep pullback to the POI, an early turn via new 15m zones, or the pivot (the conditional bias flip). Weekly Outlook §8
• The pivot — the pre-written trigger that flips the bias, with its own pre-named target. The bias can be wrong and the week still go fine. Weekly Outlook §9 Execution & Pivot §6
• No man's land — price between HTF zones with no anchor; run the week on 15-minute order flow + 15-minute targets only. Timeframes §4
• Confluence-pillar audit — tag each trade's components, filter the data, and compute what each rule actually earns. The 2R/3R protocol is personal-data-derived. End-of-Day Review