Structure & Liquidity
Map chart, higher-timeframe and session liquidity while distinguishing sweeps, confirmed breaks and retests, with CISD, IDM and Pivot Scout.
SWEEP is not BREAK. BREAK is not RETEST. SSM IQ Market Structure Liquidity treats these as three distinct events, not interchangeable ways of saying "something happened at this level." It maps chart, higher-timeframe and session liquidity alongside confirmed market structure and delivery-change evidence — one coherent picture, not three or four scripts stitched together.
Liquidity, market structure, delivery-change evidence and early-pivot evidence are usually spread across several separate indicators, each using a slightly different definition of "structure," "sweep," or "break." A trader ends up reconciling four tools' vocabularies against each other instead of reading one coherent map — and often can't tell whether a colored zone on the chart represents a confirmed event or an unconfirmed guess.
Most charts treat "the level broke" as one vague idea. This indicator treats it as three precise, mutually exclusive outcomes.
A wick briefly trading beyond a level is not the same event as price genuinely accepting beyond it — and a later return to that level is a third, separate event again. SSM IQ Market Structure Liquidity never blends these three into one generic marker:
price pushes through a level and the confirmed close reclaims it. A raid, not acceptance.
the confirmed close holds decisively beyond the level. Genuine acceptance, not a wick.
the first valid touch back to that level after it broke, with the close holding on the broken side. A return, not a fresh event. Every one of these has a precise, exclusive definition, and a BREAK always takes precedence over a SWEEP at the same level and close — the two are never confused with each other, even in fast, one-directional moves.
A raided level and a genuinely broken level never share a marker.
Not every countertrend close is treated as a trend change — only the ones actually backed by expansion.
It can confirm — or fail to confirm — a structural shift without ever being forced to agree with it.
SWEEP → MSS sequencing exists because these layers are built to inform each other.
Liquidity Quality and Pivot Scout both expose the categories behind their verdicts, not just a single opaque number.
A wick-through-and-reclaim, a decisive close-through, and a later confirmed return are different events with different implications for what a trader does next. The indicator always keeps them visually and analytically separate — never one shared marker standing in for three different outcomes.
Confirmed swing highs and lows mapped into buy-side and sell-side liquidity pools, each carrying a 0–100 Liquidity Quality evidence score (contacts, respects, tests, recency, and where available, volume and higher-timeframe/session confluence).
Up to five confirmed higher-timeframe levels, plus full Asia/London/New York sessions that freeze into ordinary reference levels once each session ends — all built only from confirmed, already-closed data.
One engine drives both swing labels and structural events. A countertrend close only becomes an MSS when genuine displacement backs it; otherwise it's a CHoCH.
An independent read on whether the balance of delivery has actually changed, tracked entirely separately from the structure engine, so it can confirm or fail to confirm a structural shift on its own evidence.
One clearly tracked internal liquidity candidate at a time, rebuilt purely from confirmed structure and existing liquidity; when a confirmed SWEEP is followed by a same-direction MSS, the two combine into one labeled sequence.
Scores a candidate price extreme across liquidity, rejection, momentum/delivery and structural-location evidence before the slower structure engine can confirm a swing there. Verdicts: Strong, Mixed, Weak, Trap Risk.
Every module runs on confirmed, closed price action, and event detection never depends on what's currently visible on the chart. Turning off a drawing — a pool zone, a label, a marker — never turns off the analysis behind it or the alert tied to it. What you see on the chart is always a direct reflection of what the engine has actually confirmed, not a cosmetic layer sitting on top of a different calculation.
Illustrative scenario — not a real trade record or a performance claim.
Market Context: A prior New York session high on XAUUSD sits as a frozen reference level once the session ends, behaving from that point on like any other mapped liquidity level. What Happened: Price later wicks above that level during a subsequent session and closes back inside it — the engine registers a SWEEP, not a break. Some sessions later, price returns, closes decisively beyond the same level plus its ATR-scaled buffer, and this time holds — the engine registers a BREAK. Within the bounded RETEST window that follows, price returns once more to the broken level and holds on the broken side — the engine registers a RETEST. What The Indicator Showed: Three separate, correctly labeled markers at the same price level, each reflecting a genuinely different relationship between price and that level — never one generic "something happened here" symbol. Why It Mattered: A trader reading only "price touched this level three times" would miss that these were three analytically distinct events calling for three different reads. The indicator's job is to keep that distinction precise every time, automatically.
Pivot Scout scores a candidate price extreme across four evidence categories — liquidity, rejection, momentum/delivery, and structural location — before the slower structure engine can confirm a swing there. Strong and Trap Risk verdicts sit at opposite ends of the same transparent, inspectable scale, not a hidden formula delivered as a single number.
Auto-Timeframe Tuning (on by default in both editions, and the only mode in Lite) automatically adapts the engine's detection geometry to match your chart's own timeframe — from tick and second charts through to monthly — so the indicator is ready to use without a lengthy setup process. Manual Mode, available in the Full edition, hands experienced traders direct numeric control over that same geometry for calibrating a specific chart or instrument by hand. It changes parameters, never the underlying detection logic.
Full and Lite run the exact same analytical engine — every event, level, structure read, CISD confirmation and Pivot Scout verdict is identical at equivalent settings. The difference is how much you configure by hand. Full gives complete manual control over the engine's geometry, custom higher-timeframe tiers, and individually configurable alerts and colours — built for traders who want to hand-tune the indicator to a specific instrument or workflow. Lite keeps a focused, essential control set running permanently on the same proven Auto-Timeframe configuration — fewer decisions before you start, the same underlying analysis. Lite is not a "lesser" version of the analysis, just a simpler way to reach it.
complete manual calibration, custom higher-timeframe tiers, individually configurable Pivot Scout verdict colours and independent text-size roles.
streamlined controls, always on Auto-Timeframe, one combined text-size control — same detection engine underneath.
Theme (Auto, Dark or Light), Chart Visual Priority (Clean, Balanced or Research density presets), and independent visibility toggles for every module let you decide how much of the map is on screen at once — all without touching detection logic. A dedicated lane system keeps liquidity, session, higher-timeframe and delivery elements legible together instead of overlapping, even with several layers active at once.
The indicator's lane system keeps liquidity, session, higher-timeframe and delivery elements in their own space along the chart's right edge, and colours are chosen to stay legible against any candle scheme. Dark and Light themes are full palettes, not a background swap, so the indicator reads cleanly whether it's the only SSM IQ tool on your chart or one of several.
Runs on TradingView, built in Pine Script. No minimum subscription plan is required; source history depth, request coverage and drawing visibility depend on your own TradingView plan and how much chart history you have loaded. Designed for standard time-based charts; also supports tick charts for chart-timeframe liquidity and structure — time-based Higher-Timeframe and Session layers aren't available on tick charts, since they have no time axis to reference.
See the full technical documentation for complete details.
No — it's an evidence ranking from 0 to 100, built from contacts, respects, tests, recency and (where available) volume and confluence.
No — Strong, Mixed, Weak and Trap Risk are heuristic evidence classes describing a candidate extreme, not entry signals or probability estimates.
Both run the exact same analytical engine. Full adds full manual calibration and custom higher-timeframe tiers for traders who want to hand-tune everything; Lite keeps a focused, essential control set and always runs on the same proven Auto-Timeframe configuration.
No — it's a contextual sequence label joining a confirmed liquidity SWEEP with a same-direction MSS that follows within a defined window. It is descriptive, not a trade trigger.
Yes — Auto-Timeframe explicitly covers a full intraday range (1m through 8h) in addition to tick, seconds, daily, multi-day, weekly and monthly families.
Any TradingView symbol that provides standard OHLC data; ATR-based geometry is designed to keep settings meaningfully portable across instrument types.
SWEEP, BREAK and RETEST — precisely defined, every time.
One engine for liquidity, structure and delivery-change evidence — with a vocabulary that never blurs a temporary raid with genuine acceptance.
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