5. Key Levels & HTF Criteria

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5.1 Key Levels

Community insight

If the market hasn't produced a key level, treat the next significant swing, gap, or range as the one you build the read from. — Erik — Lathyrus Q&A, 6 Jul 2026
Look for a key level around the opening price. — Garrett — "GxT Invalidations | Continuations", 03:40
Really only three key levels matter in practice: highs and lows frame reversals and retracements, while fair value gaps and order blocks are what continuations are traded from. — Garrett — "4H Profiling", 4:07
Don't reverse off a failure swing that's just a stop-out of a larger relevant swing — wait for the relevant swing itself, or for a new fractal to form, rather than trading the failure swing as if it were the real level. — Afyz — week trade recap, 12:41
When there's no other key level nearby — for example at all-time highs — only use a 6H consecutive-candle high, a 4H consecutive-candle high, or a 90-minute SSMT to frame a reversal off of. Don't reach for a 1H high in that situation; it isn't a strong enough level on its own. — Erik — trade recap, 12:15

Common key levels:

NWOG / NDOG can act as support / resistance, especially when overlapping with gaps.

Additional rules:

Daily H/L usually forms from a key level, especially a 4H gap or 1H order-pairing range.
Swing formation also requires key-level support.
Without a key level, swing formation is less valid.
A new key level can be used as the third type of expansion timing tool, but it is weaker than SS and HTF open.
Valid key levels are relevant swings.
Exception: a failure swing with SMT can be used as a tradable reference.

Community insight

Gap selection is fractal and nests exactly one timeframe down from whatever candle you are refining: a daily gap for a weekly candle, a 4H gap for a daily candle, a 1H or 30m gap for a 4H candle, and so on. — Garrett — "GxT | Universal Sequence", 12:42
When a lower-timeframe gap is formed from a sloppy, barely-there sweep, prefer using the cleaner higher-timeframe gap instead — for example a 90-minute gap over a messy hourly one — even though the hourly is technically lower timeframe. — Erik — weekly trade recap, 17:00
Don't use the second gap in a same-timeframe sequence as your key level — if price skips past the first gap, you can't know whether it will reverse from the second gap or continue to a third. The first gap is the only one you can trust, unless the asset only has one gap to begin with. — Erik — trade recap, 2:08
Which gap timeframe to trust also depends on where price sits inside the overall reversal-to-draw range: a 15-minute gap while still in discount, stepping up to a 1H or 30-minute gap once price crosses into premium — a 15-minute gap high in the range is really just a lower-timeframe order block, not a protected swing. — Garrett — Q&A stream, 18:10
Whether a breakaway gap stays unfilled also depends on where it forms in the range: one forming in premium, early in a reversal, is much more likely to be left open than one forming in discount. — Garrett — Q&A stream, 16:37

A refined key level:

is within daily EQ;
and is one of:
- a 4H+ gap, or
- a 1H+ swing high / low;
wait for price to hit the level with SMT.
Gap selection is fractal and nests by one timeframe step: to refine a weekly candle’s key level, look for a daily gap inside the previous week’s range; for a daily candle, a 4H gap; for a 4H candle, a 1H or 30m gap; and so on down the timeframes.
Prefer gaps in close proximity to the opening price of the higher-timeframe candle over gaps far from it — a gap far from the open, even if technically inside the range, still forces a large wick and disrespects equilibrium to reach it.
Which gap timeframe to use also depends on where price currently sits inside the overall reversal-to-draw range: use a 15m gap while still in the discount portion of that range, and switch to a 1H or 30m gap once price crosses equilibrium into premium. Trading a 15-minute gap that’s high in the range risks entering on what is really just a lower-timeframe order block, not a genuinely protected swing.
A breakaway gap’s odds of staying unfilled also depend on range position: one forming in premium of the range, early in a reversal, is much more likely to be left open than one forming in discount.

If the key level is not hit with SMT, SMT must form inside the key level before a reversal can be considered.

Community insight

Sweeping one failure swing inside a close-proximity cluster doesn't remove the draw — the market still has a reason to return until every relevant high/low in that cluster has been manipulated. — Garrett — "How I Confirm Narrative With Drivers", 5:47
An SMT built from sweeping a whole cluster of failure swings in an already-trending market is generally a low-probability one — there is usually still low-resistance liquidity left beyond it to draw price back out. — Garrett — "A Deeper Dive into SMT Divergence", 7:48
Don't worry about every failure swing in the market — only ones near the opening price of the current candle, roughly within EQ of the previous candle's range. A failure swing hundreds of points away is irrelevant to the current move. — Garrett — "resuming our back test from last week" stream, 49:13
Don't default to a fixed timeframe to find a relevant swing. Climb up from the intraday chart until you reach the first timeframe where that swing point stands alone, spaced apart from other swings — that's the timeframe whose swing is actually relevant. — Garrett — Q&A stream, 19:49
When scanning the daily chart for relevant swings, cap the look-back at 30 daily candles. Highs/lows further back than that are excluded regardless of how they'd otherwise qualify — the goal is staying fluid for intraday bias, not weighting price action from months or years prior the same as recent structure. — AM — "Relevant Swings", 10:36

Relevant swings are spaced-out highs / lows. Failure swings are close-proximity highs / lows within the same small area, i.e. low-resistance liquidity.
Manipulating a relevant swing creates a protected swing.
Manipulating a single failure swing inside a close-proximity cluster does not remove the draw. There is still a reason to return to that area until every relevant high / low within the cluster has been swept.
Once the whole cluster has been manipulated, there is no reason left to return, and this is where price tends to expand away.
To find the relevant swing for a given low/high, do not default to a fixed timeframe (e.g. always the hourly). Instead, climb timeframes upward from the intraday chart until the first one where that swing is spaced apart from other swings, not clustered among close-proximity lows/highs. That is the timeframe whose swing point is actually relevant.

Personal study notes, shared as-is and in good faith. Educational material only — nothing on this site constitutes financial advice.