For traders who are done being inconsistent and want a real process.
Excess, Poor Highs and Failed Auctions
How an auction ends tells you whether it is really over. A sharp rejection says done. A flat, crowded top says unfinished. Learn to tell them apart, then call six highs yourself.
The idea in one minute
An auction ends when price goes far enough that the other side steps in. How hard they step in leaves a mark.
Excess is a clean end. Price pushes a little too far, the other side answers hard, and price leaves fast. It leaves a tail: a few prices at the extreme with almost no volume. Like a needle peak, it was touched once and abandoned. That auction is finished.
A poor high or poor low is the opposite. Price keeps touching the same extreme, volume piles up right there, and there is no tail. Like a flat plateau, nothing rejected it. It just stopped. The auction up there looks unfinished, and markets often come back to finish it.
A low works the same way upside down. A buying tail at the low is excess. A flat, crowded low with no tail is a poor low. The tools below show highs, but everything carries over.
A failed auction is a look beyond a level that finds nobody to trade with. Price breaks out, gets no follow through, and falls back inside. When that happens, the other side of the range often comes into play.
Make a high
The bars on the right of each chart are the volume profile: how much traded at each price. The longest bar is the point of control (POC), the price with the most volume. Same rally into the same area. The slider decides how hard the sellers answer when price gets there. Watch the top of the profile change from a flat, crowded plateau into a thin tail.
Go deeper: how this page measures a tail
The tail here is the number of one point rows at the very top of the profile that each hold less than about a fifth of the POC's volume. Three or more thin rows in a row counts as excess. If there is no tail and price spent three or more minutes sitting on the exact high, it counts as a poor high. In this simulator, those minutes stand in for volume piling up there.
On a time based profile you will see the same thing as single prints at the extreme. On a footprint you will often see very small numbers at the high. Different tools, same story: was the extreme rejected, or did price just stop?
Failed auction vs accepted breakout
A range, then a break above its high. Everything up to the break is identical. Choose what happens next, then drag through the rest of the day.
Good high or poor high?
Six sessions. Look at the top of the day, on the candles and on the profile, and call it.
How I use it
A poor high or poor low from the prior session goes on my chart as unfinished business. I do not assume it gets taken out today. But if price gets near it, I expect it to be tested, so I am careful about fading it, which means trading against the move, right in front of it.
Excess is the opposite. A clean tail tells me that auction is done, and I am comfortable using it as a reference. And a failed auction above a range high is something I take seriously: the market looked above, found nobody, and came back. From there the other side of the range is in play.
Checkpoint
Checkpoint4 quick questions on how auctions end
What is excess at a high?
Price touches exactly the same high again and again, volume piles up there, and there is no tail. What is it?
Why do traders keep an eye on poor highs and lows?
Price breaks above a range high, finds no follow through and falls back inside. What is that, and what often comes into play?
Recap
- Excess: a sharp rejection and a thin tail. That auction is finished.
- Poor high or low: a flat, crowded extreme with no tail. It looks unfinished and often gets revisited.
- Failed auction: a break beyond a level with no follow through. The other side of the range often comes into play.
- For every extreme, ask: rejected, or just stopped?
How auctions end only makes full sense next to value, the profile and the footprint. The Mentorship ties them all together.
Liquidity Sweeps: What the Footprint Shows
ICT Concepts and Auction Market Theory
The Mentorship
You just learned to tell a finished high from a poor one. Now learn to trade it.
Knowing it is one thing. Trading it live is where most traders fall apart: they hesitate, enter late, get stopped out, and watch the move go without them.
The free lessons show you what the market is doing. The Mentorship teaches you how to trade it.
You can keep piecing it together from free videos for months, jumping between strategies. Or you can learn it properly, in order, with me in your corner.
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