GLOSSARY · MARKET STRUCTURE
What is trend?
A trend is a sustained directional bias in price, conventionally identified by a sequence of higher highs and higher lows, or lower highs and lower lows.
What it means
The structural definition — successive higher highs and higher lows — is more useful than an indicator-based one because it is unambiguous and does not lag. A trend is intact until the sequence breaks, and the moment it breaks has a name: a break of structure.
Why it matters
Every trend definition is timeframe-specific and the timeframes routinely disagree. A market can be trending up on the four-hour chart and down on the five-minute chart simultaneously, and neither reading is wrong. Systems that fail to specify which timeframe defines their bias produce contradictory signals for reasons that look mysterious.
What this changes in practice
Our engine resolves this with an explicit multi-timeframe bias check and will not open a trade when that bias is neutral. That single gate removed a large share of losing entries in testing — not because trend-following is superior, but because trades taken against a clear higher-timeframe direction consistently produced the worst results across every strategy in the set.
Related terms
- RangeA range is a period in which price oscillates between a defined high and low without net progres…
- Break of structureA break of structure is price closing beyond the swing point that defined the current trend, con…
- Average directional indexADX measures the strength of a trend on a 0–100 scale without indicating its direction, commonly…
- Higher timeframe biasHigher timeframe bias is the directional read taken from a longer chart and used to filter which…
Educational information only, not financial advice. Trading leveraged products carries substantial risk of loss. Last updated 2026-08-11.