Appendix A: On-screen glossary
These are the terms PRISM uses throughout the book. Return here when you need a quick reference.
A.1 Legend and dashboard
| On-screen text | Meaning | Where it appears |
|---|---|---|
Harmony | A bullish or bearish candle with standout volume that travels far in price. Effort produced result. Brightness indicates how notable the candle is relative to recent activity in that symbol itself. | Legend, VSA |
Absorption | A great deal of money enters but price does not travel far, showing that opposing force is stopping it. This marker does not state direction on its own. | Legend, VSA, and Profile |
Dead | An empty candle, showing that the session had no significant activity. This is a non-event; do not try to infer direction from its close. | Legend, VSA |
Time node | A price level where the market spent considerable time, meaning it accepted that level. | Legend, Profile |
Time peak | A more sharply concentrated Time node. It is not automatically the most important level. | Legend, Profile |
Thin | A price level the market passed through very quickly. The longer the spike, the less visited the level. | Legend, Profile |
Unaccepted | Money appears but price does not remain. A seemingly solid level can still be a trap if the market has not accepted it. | Legend, Profile |
Single print | A price region visited only briefly. It can also mark the boundary between two price regions. | Legend, Profile |
Revisited | A crowded level that price left and later returned to in separate episodes. Price staying there continuously does not count as a revisit. | Legend, Profile |
Profile: warming up | Not enough evidence to conclude. The raw shape remains visible, but the tool is silent; the market is not necessarily quiet. | Legend |
| Value migration | Whether value is moving higher, lower, or merely expanding in place relative to the previous cycle. Do not read it as an absolute price range. | Dashboard |
| Rotation | Whether highs and lows of recent sessions are rising, falling, or balancing. | Dashboard |
| Time-based money flow | The direction of the auction after accounting for where money actually appears. | Dashboard |
| Value Area fullness | How much of the traversed market price region the Value Area occupies. It shows whether the Profile is concentrated or sparse. | Dashboard |
| Time in Value Area | Whether the market spends more or less time in the Value Area than is usual for that symbol. Read the difference from its familiar state, not the measure in isolation. | Dashboard |
A.2 Terms not in the legend
Dragon and longer trend lines are the Sonic R ribbon. The Dragon is a dynamic price region used to distinguish impulse from retracement. Slower trend lines are filters, not signals. See chapter 3.
VAH, VAL, POC are the upper edge, lower edge, and center of each Value Area. Line style shows whether the band is complete, evidence remains thin, or the cycle is still running. See chapter 6.
Creek and ice are Wyckoff terms for boundaries between price regions, often expressed by a Single print. See section 5.6.
Value Area cycle is the period represented by each band. It determines how long “wait one more cycle” actually is, so always read it according to the timeframe in use. See chapter 6 and section 11.3.
A.3 Relationships between Value Area bands
The names below are not printed on the chart. The tool draws bands, while the trader names their relationships.
| Term | Shape on the chart | Brief meaning |
|---|---|---|
| higher | The new band sits entirely above the old band | Value has clearly migrated higher. Usually late confirmation. |
| lower | The new band sits entirely below the old band | Value has migrated lower. |
| overlapping to higher | The new band overlaps the old band but extends higher | Value is cautiously migrating higher. This is common behavior in a genuine trend. |
| overlapping to lower | The new band overlaps the old band but extends lower | Value is cautiously migrating lower. |
| inside | The new band sits entirely within the old band | The market is contracting. |
| outside | The new band extends beyond both ends of the old band | Volatility is expanding in both directions; this does not state direction. |
higher and overlapping to higher are not two degrees of the same thing. Overlapping higher is the normal progression of a trend, while value separating entirely higher is often confirmation after the entry opportunity has passed. Re-accumulation is recognized when value does not migrate lower; re-distribution when value does not migrate higher. See the full discussion in section 6.5.
A.4 HVN and LVN
| Common vocabulary | Displayed in PRISM as |
|---|---|
| HVN, High Volume Node, a crowded region that attracts price | Time node and Time peak |
| LVN, Low Volume Node, a sparse region that lets price move quickly | Thin and Single print |
A.5 Impulse and retracement
| Term | Meaning in this book |
|---|---|
| Impulse | A leg advancing in the trend direction, as price moves away from the Dragon and expands in that direction. |
| Retracement | A leg moving against the trend to return to the Dragon. In markup it is often called a pullback; in markdown, a bounce. |
Dragon is the consistent convention for separating legs. What matters is that the same marker may have opposite meanings depending on whether it occurs in an impulse or retracement. See section 4.8.
A.6 Unlabeled information
| What you see | What it says | Read more at |
|---|---|---|
| Thick bracketed region on the histogram | Its width is the price region the market accepts. Wide is a price shelf; narrow is a concentrated region. This is cause expressed through price. | Section 5.4 |
| Bright or dim Value Area | That cycle had more or less activity than usual. | Section 6.2 |
| A band with a secondary value center | The auction has two value regions: a double distribution. | Section 6.3 |
| A colored region that has not disappeared | The gap is not fully filled. | Section 5.8 |
A.7 Wyckoff vocabulary used in the book
| Abbreviation | Full term | Where in the cycle |
|---|---|---|
| PS | Preliminary Support | Accumulation, Phase A |
| SC | Selling Climax | Accumulation, Phase A |
| AR | Automatic Rally or Automatic Reaction | Phase A of both structures |
| ST | Secondary Test | Transition from Phase A to B |
| Spring | Breaks the range low then reclaims | Accumulation, Phase C |
| LPS | Last Point of Support | Accumulation, Phase D |
| SOS | Sign of Strength, jump across the creek | Accumulation, Phase D |
| PSY | Preliminary Supply | Distribution, Phase A |
| BC | Buying Climax | Distribution, Phase A |
| UT | Upthrust | Distribution, Phase B |
| UTAD | Upthrust After Distribution | Distribution, Phase C |
| LPSY | Last Point of Supply | Distribution, Phase D |
| SOW | Sign of Weakness | Distribution, Phase D |
Details for each event: chapter 9.