Academy · Advanced

Smart money concepts

A framework built around where resting orders sit and what price has to do to reach them. Market structure, liquidity pools, order blocks, fair value gaps and killzones, defined in mechanical terms.

  • ✓ 22 lessons
  • ✓ 90 minutes end to end
  • ✓ Free in MarketPro
  • ✓ No sign-up to start reading

Last reviewed by the MarketPro research desk · Editorial policy

Smart money concepts describe a chart in terms of liquidity. Stop orders cluster in predictable places, just beyond an obvious swing high or below the low of the previous day, and a large order can only be filled against orders resting on the other side. Read that way, a sharp push through a level that immediately reverses looks less like a failed breakout and more like a fill.

This category defines the vocabulary precisely, because it is used loosely everywhere else: market structure and break of structure, change of character, liquidity pools and sweeps, order blocks, fair value gaps and imbalance, premium and discount within a range, and the London and New York killzones.

It assumes you are already comfortable with support and resistance, trend and multi timeframe reading, so work through technical analysis first. One limit is worth stating up front: the mechanism is observable on a chart, the intent behind it is not.

The 22 lessons in order

  1. Market Structure: The SMC Lens Swing highs, swing lows, and the order in which they break. That is the whole of market structure, and the labels only help if… Advanced4 min
  2. Liquidity: Where Stops Cluster Resting orders are not spread evenly across a chart. They cluster where everybody can see them, and price has a habit of going… Advanced4 min
  3. Order Blocks: An Introduction The last opposing candle before an impulsive move. Useful as a location and a stop reference, unreliable as a reason on its own. Advanced4 min
  4. Fair Value Gaps: An Introduction Three candles where the outer wicks never overlap, leaving a band of price that only ever traded one way. Advanced4 min
  5. Session Timing and Killzones Participation is not constant through the day, so the same chart shape printed at 03:00 and at 09:00 are not the same piece of… Advanced4 min
  6. Break Of Structure Vs Change Of Character One label says the trend is intact, the other says something changed. Mixing them up means reading the chart backwards. Advanced4 min
  7. Premium And Discount Pricing Zones Above the midpoint of the range is expensive, below it is cheap. A context filter that changes your risk-reward more than most… Advanced4 min
  8. Breaker Blocks: When Order Blocks Fail Built out of a failure, not a success. The zone that stopped you out becomes a tightly defined location in the opposite direction. Advanced4 min
  9. Mitigation Blocks Explained The zone where people caught on the wrong side of a fast move get their first chance to leave without a large loss. Advanced5 min
  10. Inducement: The Trap Before The Move The shallow level between you and the zone you actually want. Useful as a warning about stop placement, dangerous as an excuse… Advanced4 min
  11. Equal Highs And Lows As Liquidity Targets A flat ceiling on your chart is a flat ceiling on everyone else’s, which is exactly what makes it crowded. Advanced4 min
  12. Internal Vs External Liquidity Minor swings inside the range, major swings beyond its edges. One kind gets cleared in passing, the other is where something has… Advanced4 min
  13. Imbalance And Inefficiency Beyond The Basic Gap Any stretch where price travelled one way with almost no two-way trade behind it. The three-candle gap is just the tidiest… Advanced4 min
  14. Multi-Timeframe Alignment In Smart Money Analysis A chart is one timeframe’s opinion. Two charts is a method, and six is a way of finding the answer you already wanted. Advanced4 min
  15. Supply And Demand Zones Vs Order Blocks Two names, one place on the chart, different rules for drawing it. The difference shows up in your stop distance, not your… Advanced4 min
  16. Draw On Liquidity And Directional Bias Not "up or down" but "which pool does price go and take first". A bias question with a level attached to the answer. Advanced4 min
  17. Judas Swings And False Breakouts A liquidity sweep with a clock attached. The session open collects the orders stacked outside the overnight range before the day… Advanced4 min
  18. Point Of Interest Confluence Stacking reasons on a price area only works when the reasons measure different things. Most confluence lists fail that test. Advanced4 min
  19. Range Expansion And Consolidation Phases Markets alternate between coiling and travelling, and the tools that work in one state are the tools that bleed in the other. Advanced4 min
  20. Wyckoff Concepts And Smart Money Overlap Two frameworks eighty years apart describing the same chart. The overlap is evidence the patterns are real, not that the story is. Advanced4 min
  21. Smart Money Vs Retail Trader Psychology Not a claim that retail traders are foolish. A model for why the most obvious answer on a chart is also the most crowded one. Advanced4 min
  22. Risk Management Within A Smart Money Framework Structure tells you where the idea fails. It tells you nothing about how much belongs on it, and that is the question that… Advanced5 min

Guided paths that use these lessons

A path is an ordered run through lessons from several categories, which is how the app sequences them. One path draws on smart money concepts.

Smart Money Concepts

Market structure, liquidity, order blocks and fair value gaps. An advanced lens on price action.

10 lessons
Trade · Learn · Earn

Take smart money concepts with you

All 22 lessons in this category, plus the other 298 in the academy, with a quiz on each one and your place kept. Free on any MarketPro account, in the app or your browser.

In your browserContinue on webor continue on web Download on theApp Store Get it onGoogle Play

Same account as the app · No install · Free to start

Not investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results.