Definition

Relocation

The shift to a new bid or ask when aggression consumes the available liquidity at the current price and must find orders elsewhere.

Full Explanation

Relocation is what produces price movement. Aggression reaches the best available price, consumes the resting liquidity there, and still has orders left to fill. Those remaining aggressive orders move to the next price where opposing liquidity exists. The bid or ask changes in the process, and the chart records that change as price moving.

The speed and distance of relocation depend on the relationship between aggression and available liquidity. Large aggression meeting thin liquidity can move through several prices quickly. Similar aggression meeting deep liquidity may barely move at all.

This is why Trade the Mechanics avoids saying that price moved because of a pattern, momentum, or intent. Those descriptions may summarize what the chart looks like, but relocation describes the mechanism underneath it: the available liquidity at one price was not enough, so execution had to continue somewhere else.

In the Book 1 chapter

Chapter 3 · The Mechanics

Absorption and Relocation

Here’s a question that sounds simple but most traders have never actually answered: why does price move?

From the Blog 6 posts

Describing vs. Predicting: The Trader's Discipline

Learn why describing what price is doing beats predicting what it will do next—and how this shift transforms your trading.

The Fallacy of "Key Levels" (And the Myth of "Strength")

A price level is just a number. Its significance comes entirely from the orders sitting at it right now—and those orders change constantly.

Absorption: When Aggression Arrives and Nothing Happens

Absorption is the mechanical event where market orders meet enough resting liquidity and price fails to move—understanding it changes how you read every consolidation.

"Failed Breakout" — A Phrase That Fails the Trader

The phrase 'failed breakout' attributes intent to price. Let's replace it with a mechanical description that actually helps you read the chart.

Why the Author Is Not the Authority

Trading education often becomes a personality cult. TTM reframes the guru trap, moving the authority from the author to the market's mechanical reality.

Why "Buyers vs. Sellers" Is the Wrong Frame

Every transaction has both a buyer and a seller. That's not insight — it's arithmetic. The question that actually matters is different, and until you're asking it, you're working with the wrong map.