Putting it together — reading all five on one chart

In plain words

Turn on all five add-ons in the SMC menu and the chart fills up with lines and boxes. You may know each one, yet together they leave you unsure where to look first.

The fix is to fix the order. Go from big to small and ask the same five questions in the same order every time, and a busy picture becomes a single map.

1. Direction — which way is the flow?
2. Location — is price on the expensive or the cheap side of that flow's range?
3. Reference lines — are yesterday's or last week's high and low nearby?
4. Zones — if price comes back, where will it reach first?
5. Liquidity — where are orders likely piled up?

The concept

One tool per question

Step	The question	What to look at (menu)
1 Direction	Up or down, and did it just turn?	Structure — BOS · CHoCH, strong · weak highs · lows
2 Location	Upper (expensive) or lower (cheap) part of the range?	Premium · Discount zones, equilibrium
3 Reference lines	Where are the calendar's lines?	Previous day/week high·low
4 Zones	Places price may react to on a return	FVG, order blocks
5 Liquidity	Places where stop orders likely sit	EQH · EQL

The order matters because each answer changes the meaning of the next. The same order block weighs differently depending on whether the flow is up or down, and whether it sits on the cheap or the expensive side of the range.

A real Bitcoin 1-hour chart (5–11 June 2025, dates and times in Korean time like the chart axis) with swing structure and all five add-ons on. The "now" of this example is the last candle, 4 a.m. on 11 June. The numbers on the markers follow the steps in "In practice" below.

An analogy

Say you unfold a map in a strange city.

• First you find north with a compass — direction (structure).
• Then you mark where you are — the edge of the neighbourhood or its middle (location).
• You check the main street names — everyone knows them, so they are how people give directions (previous day/week levels).
• You look for nearby stops — places where you easily pause on the way (FVGs · order blocks).
• Last, you note where the crowds are — busy places are where things happen (EQH · EQL).

Without north, knowing the bus stops doesn't tell you which bus to take. That is why the compass always comes first.

In practice

1 Direction — the fall turned

At 3 a.m. on 6 June a close below the previous low (103,068.55 USDT) made a BOS ↓. The fall was continuing, and two hours later, in the 5 a.m. candle, price reached 100,372.26 USDT.

Price then climbed back. The 6 p.m. candle on 9 June wicked above the previous high (106,794.67 USDT) to 106,888 USDT, but closed below it at 106,612.52 USDT — not a break. The very next candle, 7 p.m., closed at 107,179.70 USDT above that high, making a CHoCH ↑: the first sign the fall had turned.

The level the new uptrend must hold is now the strong low 100,372.26 USDT, and the weak high above is 110,530.17 USDT (strong and weak highs and lows, from Part 2, Market structure).

2 Location — the expensive side of an uptrend

The premium/discount range is between those two values, 100,372.26 – 110,530.17 USDT, with the equilibrium line at 105,451.21 USDT. The close of the last finished candle (3 a.m. on 11 June), 109,282.38 USDT, sits about 88% of the way up the range — above equilibrium, on the expensive (premium) side. It has not yet reached the premium band at the top (110,022.27 – 110,530.17 USDT).

In SMC terms this reads as "the flow is up, but price is already on the expensive side of the range". In an uptrend, the place many traders wait for is below equilibrium, on the cheap side.

3 Reference lines — the lines overlap

"Now" is 4 a.m. on 11 June, so "yesterday" is 9 a.m. on 9 June to 9 a.m. on the 10th, and "last week" is 9 a.m. on Monday 2 June to 9 a.m. on the 9th.

• Previous day's high 110,530.17 USDT (the 6 a.m. candle on the 10th) — the same value as the weak high and the top of the range.
• Previous day's low 105,318.37 USDT (the noon candle on the 9th).
• Previous week's high 106,794.67 USDT — the very high broken by the CHoCH in step 1.
• Previous week's low 100,372.26 USDT — the same value as the strong low and the bottom of the range.

When different tools point to the same place, people reading the chart in different ways are all looking at the same line. Lines with the same value overlap into one on the chart, and where labels collide only one may show.

4 Zones — boxes left by the breakout

• Order block 105,500 – 105,692.84 USDT — the 4 p.m. candle on 9 June, the last down candle before the rise that made the CHoCH ↑.
• Two up FVGs sit right above it — 105,692.84 – 105,832 USDT (middle candle 5 p.m.) and 105,949.09 – 106,565.30 USDT (middle candle 6 p.m.): gaps left as price rose fast.
• Higher up there is an up FVG at 108,127.16 – 108,284.50 USDT (2 a.m. on the 10th), and below equilibrium, on the cheap side, an up FVG at 104,942.02 – 105,050.04 USDT (7 p.m. on the 7th).
• The red box just above the current price is a down FVG, 109,788.58 – 109,909.54 USDT (10 a.m. on the 10th).

5 Liquidity — two lows at the same height

The noon candle's low on 9 June, 105,318.37 USDT, and the 3 p.m. candle's low, 105,319 USDT, are almost the same height, so an EQL (equal lows) formed. It looks like a floor that held twice, which is exactly why stop orders tend to pile up just below it. It is also the same value as the previous day's low from step 3.

Putting the answers together

Together the five answers say: the flow has just turned up (1), and price is on the expensive side of the range (2). Below, between 105,300 USDT and 106,800 USDT, the equilibrium line, the order block, two FVGs, the EQL with the previous day's low, and the previous week's high are all bunched together (3 · 4 · 5). Above sits 110,530.17 USDT, the previous day's high and the weak high.

What this map gives you is not an "answer" but questions to watch.

• If price comes down into the cluster below, does a reaction such as an internal CHoCH ↑ appear there?
• Does price only wick below the EQL and previous day's low (105,318 USDT) and come back (a sweep), or does it close below?
• If the strong low 100,372.26 USDT breaks on a close, go back and re-ask step 1: is it still up?
• If price goes up, does it pass 110,530.17 USDT with only a wick, or with a close?

Going deeper

Overlap means attention, not odds

Several tools pointing at one place does not mean that place will hold. All the overlap tells you is that "many people are watching here". Precisely because it is watched, price often sweeps the orders just beyond it.

Turn them on one at a time

At first, don't switch on all five at once. Start with structure only and add the rest one by one in the order above. You won't mix up which line is which, and you will find out which add-ons you don't need.

Narrowing the timeframe

Many traders answer steps 1 and 2 (direction and location) with swing structure on a 4-hour or 1-hour chart, and steps 4 and 5 (zones and liquidity) on shorter candles — so they pick only small signals that agree with the big picture.

Write it down, check it later

After reading the map, write down "I will watch whether this happens at this level", then open the same chart a few days later and compare. That habit is the fastest way to make SMC second nature.

On our chart

How to turn it on

Chart tab › SMC button › set Structure to "Swing" (or "Swing + internal"), then under Add-ons tick FVG · Order blocks · EQH · EQL · Premium · Discount zones · Previous day/week high·low. At first only FVG and order blocks are on. Your choice is remembered on this device and applies to every chart in the chart tab.

Facts about our implementation

• All five come from the same calculation as structure — finished candles only, counted only within the candles the chart has received (500 from Binance).
• There are caps: the 5 most recent unfilled FVGs, up to 3 order blocks each above and below that no close has invalidated, and up to 3 each of EQH and EQL.
• The premium/discount range uses the same values as the strong and weak high and low. Each band is the top or bottom 5% of the range, with the equilibrium line in the middle.
• Fills (premium/discount bands → order blocks → FVGs) are drawn under the candles; lines (equilibrium, structure, EQH/EQL, previous day/week) over them.
• Structure labels (BOS, CHoCH, strong, weak) are never hidden because of other labels. Add-on labels are placed in the order equilibrium → EQH/EQL → previous day/week → FVG → order blocks → premium/discount; one that overlaps a label already placed tries another spot, and is hidden if there is none.
• It is recounted only when candles arrive, when a new candle starts, or when you change the settings — never on every tick.

That completes "SMC basics". To start again from the top, see What is smart money?; to revisit structure, Market structure — BOS and CHoCH; the previous article is Previous day and week highs and lows.