Auctions, within the market’s natural two-way auction process, end in one of two ways:

1) Most commonly the auction ends through a more aggressive counter auction that creates a buying or selling tail, or

2) The auction ends through simple exhaustion. Exhaustion is similar to running up a steep hill and continuing to lose pace or momentum until we just stop and begin to slowly turn around and gradually walk back down the hill. The only thing that stopped us was the loss of our own momentum. By far the most reliable and information-packed ending is through aggressive counteraction. We refer to an auction that terminated through exhaustion as poor or unsecured because of the lack of counteraction; the original auction, after getting a rest, is more likely to make another attempt to crest the hill. The more attempts that are made, the more likely the auction will finally succeed. Poor highs or lows are often the results of excessively long inventory (with regard to poor highs) or excessively short inventory (with regard to poor lows). These inventory imbalances often involve longer-timeframes and therefore take time to balance before continuing in the direction of the prevailing trend. Completion term for visual examples.