What is break of structure?

What it means

In an uptrend, structure breaks upward when price closes above the previous swing high — a continuation signal. The term is often confused with its counterpart, the change of character, which is the break that goes the other way and warns the trend may be ending.

Why it matters

The value of the concept is that it makes "the trend is intact" testable. Instead of an opinion about direction, you have a specific price that either has or has not been exceeded, which is precisely what an automated system needs.

What this changes in practice

The subtlety that costs money is whether you require a close beyond the level or accept a wick. Requiring a close filters out sweeps but arrives late; accepting a wick is faster and catches every liquidity sweep as a false signal. We require the close, and accept the lateness, because on gold the wick version fired constantly and won rarely.