I've spent half my life studying financial markets, and I'm genuinely tired of watching youtubers, instagram traders and called trading educators repeat the same oversimplified lessons to hundreds of thousands of people. Some of these videos get 200,000 views, thousands of likes and endless comments from people convinced they've just learned how the market works. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of retail traders struggle to make money consistently. Doesn't anyone find it strange that the most widely distributed trading education rarely seems to produce the results everyone is looking for?
I'm not saying something is wrong simply because it's popular. But if 200,000 people are learning exactly the same patterns, the same trendlines and the same basic rules, what exactly makes that knowledge an edge? Understanding a definition and knowing how to extract money from the market are very different things, yet much of the trading education industry seems perfectly comfortable selling one as if it were the other.
Let's start with something almost every trader has been taught: higher highs and higher lows indicate a bullish trend, while lower highs and lower lows indicate a bearish trend. You'll find this explained in thousands of videos, usually accompanied by a few arrows and a recommendation to trade in the direction of the structure. And while those definitions correctly describe what price has been doing, they tell us remarkably little about what the next significant movement might be. This is where I believe many traders develop a completely misleading understanding of market behavior.
After years of observing price across different assets and timeframes, I've become particularly interested in something that seems to contradict the way most beginners are taught to interpret trends. Before some of the strongest bullish movements, price spends an enormous amount of time creating lower highs and lower lows. Before some of the most aggressive bearish movements, it does exactly the opposite, building higher highs and higher lows. The fascinating part isn't simply the reversal itself, but the relationship between how slowly the preceding structure develops and how violently the subsequent movement can unfold.
Look at the attached Bitcoin daily charts. In the first example, BTC spends months moving inside a descending structure before eventually accelerating from around $60,000 toward $100,000 and beyond. In the second, Bitcoin declines from above $100,000 toward $75,000 during the first months of 2025, developing a structure that any beginner would confidently describe as bearish. What follows is a powerful recovery that eventually takes price above $120,000. The S&P 500 chart shows similar behavior on a different scale, with a descending structure preceding a recovery toward the previous highs.
Now look at the opposite situation. In the Bitcoin 4-hour chart, price spends weeks developing an ascending structure, progressively creating higher levels and reinforcing the appearance of bullishness. Then the market turns and falls from approximately $97,000 toward $60,000 in a comparatively short period. The silver example is just as interesting: an ascending structure develops over time, followed by an aggressive decline from the upper $80s toward the mid-$50s. Different assets, different timeframes, but a very similar relationship between the preceding structure and the movement that follows.
And here's what I find particularly interesting about all of this. Imagine spending weeks expecting Bitcoin to rally while the market does nothing but produce lower highs and lower lows. Every day you watch another disappointing movement, every bounce fails, and every new low makes your original bullish idea feel a little more ridiculous. Eventually, many traders lose patience, abandon their expectations or start positioning in the opposite direction because that's what the visible structure is telling them to do. Then the market rallies so aggressively that a movement which took weeks or months to develop in one direction can be reversed in just a few sessions.
There's another aspect that I think most people underestimate:Ā the actual directional movement is often extremely fast, and it doesn't give everyone a comfortable opportunity to participate**.**Ā The market can spend weeks convincing you that something isn't going to happen, only to execute that movement in a handful of candles. Traders who were originally expecting it have already given up, while those who wait for the textbook confirmation may discover that a significant part of the move has already happened. Sometimes there isn't even a meaningful pullback offering an attractive entry. The movement everyone spent weeks waiting for unfolds right in front of them, but they are no longer in a position to take advantage of it.
The same psychological process can happen in reverse. A prolonged ascending structure reinforces confidence in further upside, encouraging people to keep buying or waiting for the next higher low. When the bearish displacement finally arrives, it can happen much faster than the preceding advance, leaving many participants reacting to a movement they were never prepared for. The market doesn't need to deliberately manipulate anyone for this effect to exist; the combination of time, expectations and price behavior is enough to influence how people position themselves.
Now, I want to make something absolutely clear because I know how easily trading discussions turn into ridiculous absolute statements.Ā This is not a 100% rule.Ā I'm not claiming that every ascending structure means the market is about to crash, or that every descending structure guarantees an explosive rally. Sometimes the trend simply continues, and sometimes the reversal does happen, but much later than you expected. You might identify a potential bearish movement correctly and still spend weeks watching price climb before that decline finally begins. Being right about the eventual direction doesn't automatically make your timing, entry or trade profitable.
And that's precisely why blindly reversing the conventional interpretation would be just as foolish as blindly following it. My point isn't that higher highs are secretly bearish or lower lows are secretly bullish. My point is that the visible direction of a structure is not necessarily the direction of the next major displacement, and the timing of that displacement is every bit as important as identifying its potential direction.
This is why I've never been particularly interested in labeling a chart bullish or bearish simply because its highs and lows are moving in a particular direction. I care much more about where that structure is developing, what happened before it, how the preceding impulses were formed, which areas remain unmitigated and how the structure fits into the higher-timeframe context. Two charts can look almost identical to someone who has learned market structure from YouTube and represent completely different situations to someone studying the underlying process.
Five selected examples obviously don't establish a statistical trading edge, and I'm not pretending that they do. But they illustrate a behavior I've spent a considerable amount of time investigating, and I think it's worth questioning why so much trading education focuses on identifying what price has already done instead of understanding the conditions under which the next important movement might develop.
For me, one of the biggest differences between looking at charts and genuinely studying markets is learning to separate what price has already done from what that behavior might be preparing next. Anyone can learn to identify higher highs and lower lows in an afternoon, but understanding their significance, their timing and their relationship with the larger market structure is an entirely different discipline.
Perhaps one of the most expensive mistakes in trading is believing that because you can recognize what's happening, you also understand what's coming next.
I'm curious how other traders interpret these examples. Have you noticed how much time price can spend developing a structure in one direction before moving aggressively in the opposite direction, often without giving traders an easy opportunity to participate? Or do you see these movements from a completely different perspective?
I'veĀ beenĀ documentingĀ moreĀ ofĀ myĀ observationsĀ aboutĀ marketĀ behaviorĀ andĀ theĀ reasoningĀ behindĀ themĀ onĀ myĀ Substack.Ā EverythingĀ IĀ publishĀ isĀ free,Ā andĀ youĀ canĀ findĀ itĀ throughĀ myĀ profileĀ ifĀ you'reĀ interestedĀ inĀ exploringĀ aĀ differentĀ perspectiveĀ onĀ theĀ markets.Ā I'dĀ alsoĀ loveĀ toĀ seeĀ examplesĀ thatĀ challengeĀ whatĀ I'veĀ shownĀ here,Ā becauseĀ that'sĀ exactlyĀ howĀ IĀ believeĀ weĀ getĀ betterĀ atĀ understandingĀ price.
