Why Your Demand Zone Melted: Understanding Zone Failure in Bearish Legs

You saw a clean break of structure to the upside on the 15-minute. You marked the demand zone. It looked perfect — clear impulse, displacement, clean order block. Price came back to it. And it melted. Not just a wick through — completely destroyed, as if it never existed.

This happens because you marked demand within a bearish internal structure leg. And demand within a bearish leg has an expiration date: it dies the moment supply gets mitigated in premium.

The Setup That Traps You

Here's the sequence that gets traders over and over:

1. The 4-hour is bearish. Swing high above, swing low below. Clear bearish structure.
2. Price starts correcting upward on the 15-minute. You see higher highs, higher lows, breaks of structure to the upside.
3. You think: "The 15-minute is bullish." You mark demand zones on every pullback within this bullish 15-minute structure.
4. Price reaches supply in premium of the 4-hour leg. The 4-hour supply zone sits above the 50% equilibrium of the bearish leg.
5. Supply gets mitigated. Price reacts from the 4-hour supply and starts dropping aggressively.
6. Every demand zone you marked during the 15-minute bullish correction? Dead. They melt one by one as the bearish leg resumes.

You weren't wrong about the 15-minute breaks — they happened. You weren't wrong about the demand zones — they were structurally valid on the 15-minute. But you were wrong about their context: those demand zones existed within a bearish internal structure leg, and their only purpose was to deliver price to supply in premium.

Why These Zones Die

The Purpose of Internal Structure

Internal structure — the price action between two swing points — exists to deliver price to supply or demand zones in premium or discount. In a bearish leg:

• Internal bullish breaks deliver price to supply in premium
• Those bullish breaks create demand zones along the way
• Once supply in premium is mitigated, the delivery job is done
• The demand zones that facilitated the delivery are no longer needed

Think of these demand zones as scaffolding. They supported the price correction upward to reach the supply zone. Once the supply zone is reached and mitigated, the scaffolding gets removed. The bearish trend resumes and all that scaffolding — your demand zones — collapses.

The Premium/Discount Filter

Draw the 50% equilibrium on the 4-hour bearish leg. Every demand zone created above that 50% line (in premium) is automatically suspect. Demand in premium of a bearish leg is corrective demand — it formed during a correction, not during genuine bullish institutional entry.

Even demand zones below the 50% line (in discount) that formed during the internal correction can fail. If the supply in premium hasn't been mitigated yet, those discount demand zones are just earlier stops on the delivery route. They'll hold temporarily, then break when price needs to push higher to reach the premium supply.

How to Avoid the Trap

Rule 1: Identify the True Leg First

Before marking any demand zone, ask: "What is the true leg on the higher timeframe?" Identify the swing high and swing low on the 4-hour (or daily). If the leg is bearish, any demand you mark on the 15-minute within that leg is internal — and vulnerable to failure after supply mitigation.

Rule 2: Check if Supply in Premium Has Been Mitigated

If you're marking demand within a bearish leg, check: has the supply in premium of this leg been mitigated yet?

• Not yet mitigated: Your demand zone is part of the delivery mechanism. It might give a reaction, but don't expect it to hold long-term. Price still needs to reach that premium supply.
• Just mitigated: Your demand zone is in immediate danger. The supply just got hit, and the bearish continuation is likely imminent. These are the demand zones that melt.
• Mitigated and structure broken: The bearish leg is active again. Every demand zone from the correction is now invalid.

Rule 3: Trade Demand With Appropriate Expectations

You CAN trade demand within a bearish internal structure leg — but with counter-trend expectations:

• Take profits at the nearest supply zone — don't hold for extended targets
• Use smaller position sizes — the probability is lower
• Expect the demand to eventually fail — it's temporary by nature
• Don't flip your overall bias — the higher timeframe is still bearish

The real trade comes when price reaches the supply in premium. That's where you sell — not from internal demand that's about to get destroyed.

The Mirror Image: Supply in Bullish Legs

The same principle applies in reverse for bullish legs:

1. The 4-hour is bullish. Swing low below, swing high above.
2. Price corrects downward on the 15-minute, creating bearish breaks and supply zones.
3. Those supply zones deliver price to demand in discount of the 4-hour leg.
4. Once demand in discount is mitigated, the bullish leg resumes.
5. Every supply zone created during the 15-minute bearish correction fails.

Supply in discount of a bullish leg is corrective supply — scaffolding to get price down to the demand zone. Once the demand is mitigated, the supply dies.

Real Example Walkthrough

Setup: EUR/USD, 4-hour bearish leg. Swing high at 1.1000, swing low at 1.0800. 50% equilibrium at 1.0900.

The correction: Price starts correcting from 1.0800. On the 15-minute, you see:

• Break of structure to the upside at 1.0850 → demand zone marked at 1.0840
• Another break at 1.0880 → demand zone marked at 1.0870
• Another break at 1.0920 → demand zone marked at 1.0910

What happens next: 4-hour supply sits at 1.0950-1.0970 (in premium above 1.0900). Price reaches it. Supply gets mitigated. Price reverses.

The failure cascade:

• 1.0910 demand → melts immediately. No reaction.
• 1.0870 demand → small bounce, then breaks. Orders insufficient.
• 1.0840 demand → slightly better reaction, but still fails once selling pressure increases.
• Price continues to 1.0800 and below to sweep the swing low.

Every demand zone created during the correction failed because its purpose — delivering price to premium supply — was fulfilled.

The One Exception

There IS one scenario where demand within a bearish leg can hold: when the demand zone is at the absolute extreme of the leg, is a liquidity POI, and the supply in premium has NOT been the one that caused the current move.

If a deeper, unmitigated demand zone at the extreme of the higher timeframe leg gets tested, it can hold even against the bearish internal structure — because it represents the higher timeframe's institutional entry point, not just internal scaffolding.

But this is rare. In most cases, demand within a bearish leg fails after premium supply mitigation. Plan accordingly.

Key Takeaway

Demand zones within bearish internal structure legs are delivery mechanisms, not reversal zones. They exist to push price up to supply in premium of the higher timeframe leg. Once that supply is mitigated, the demand dies. Before marking demand on the 15-minute, always check: what is the 4-hour leg doing? Is supply in premium mitigated yet? If the leg is bearish and supply hasn't been reached, your demand is part of the correction — not the trend. Trade it as counter-trend with early targets, or skip it entirely and wait for the real trade: selling from supply in premium.