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ICT trading, explained simply
Short, practical guides to every Inner Circle Trader concept — Fair Value Gaps, Liquidity Sweeps, Killzones, Order Blocks, Market Structure Shifts and more. Each guide is paired with a free, browser-based simulator so you can rehearse the setup on 10+ years of real historical NQ price. Coming from forex? See how NQ Replay compares to FX Replay.
Start here · Pillar guide
What is ICT Trading?
The complete framework on one page — liquidity, Fair Value Gaps, order blocks, Killzones and the daily workflow. Read this first, then dive into the concepts below.
Read the pillar guide →A simple practice pathway
- 1. Learn where stops cluster — Liquidity sweep
- 2. Confirm the turn — Market structure shift
- 3. Add an optional filter — SMT divergence
- 4. Print the checklist and log — ICT cheat sheet
- 5. Rehearse in replay on NQ or MNQ (see NQ vs MNQ tick values), or on gold futures with Pro (see GC vs MGC tick values).
Gold futures guides (GC & MGC)
Practical, sourced guides for practising COMEX gold in replay — hours, sizing, rolls and measured session behaviour.
- GC vs MGC: tick value and contract specs
- Gold futures trading hours, time zones and daily break
- When gold futures are most active: GC volume by hour
- Gold futures profit and stop calculator (GC & MGC)
- Gold futures rollover, contract months and continuous charts
- Gold futures vs spot gold (XAUUSD)
- Gold futures vs gold ETFs
- Gold vs Nasdaq futures (GC vs NQ), measured
- How to backtest gold futures manually
- Backtesting gold around CPI, jobs and FOMC releases
- Gold backtesting journal template
Start here
The pillar overviews — read these first.
What is ICT Trading?
The pillar overview — every ICT concept compressed onto one page.
ICT Trading Strategy
A complete step-by-step playbook: bias, levels, sweep–MSS–FVG, exits.
Inner Circle Trader
Who Michael J. Huddleston is and the concepts he popularised.
Smart Money Concepts
The umbrella term for ICT-style price action — BoS, MSS, premium / discount.
Market structure
How price builds, breaks and reverses.
Market Structure
Swing highs and lows, trend states, and how BoS and MSS read inside them.
Break of Structure (BoS)
The continuation signal — a close through the prior swing in trend.
Market Structure Shift (MSS)
The reversal confirmation that follows a clean liquidity sweep.
Order Block
The last opposing candle before a strong impulse — a reversal zone.
Breaker Block
An order block price traded through and reclaimed — it flips direction.
Mitigation Block
The origin of a failed push, where trapped positions get out at break-even.
Power of Three (PO3)
Accumulation, manipulation, distribution — how every session unfolds.
Liquidity & imbalance
Where stops sit and how price rebalances.
Fair Value Gap (FVG)
A three-candle inefficiency the market often returns to fill.
Inverse Fair Value Gap
What an FVG becomes once it's closed through — a flipped reversal level.
Liquidity Sweep
Why price runs old highs and lows before reversing.
Turtle Soup
The classic equal-highs / lows liquidity sweep reversal setup.
SMT Divergence
Correlated-asset disagreement (NQ vs ES) as a reversal filter.
Time & entries
When to trade and where to pull the trigger.
ICT Killzones
The four high-probability session windows of the day.
Silver Bullet
The one-hour Killzone sub-window where the first FVG is the trade.
Judas Swing
The false move at session open that traps traders before the real move.
Optimal Trade Entry (OTE)
The 0.62–0.79 Fibonacci zone for high-R reversal entries.
Unicorn Model
When an FVG overlaps with a breaker block — high-confluence entries.
ICT Unicorn Strategy
The full playbook: sweep → MSS → FVG + breaker overlap entry.
ICT 2022 Mentorship Model
The flagship NY AM playbook: sweep → MSS → FVG → −2 SD target.
Ready to rehearse on real price?
The concepts stick when you see them printing bar by bar. Open the simulator, pick a recent session (Pro opens NQ back to 2010), and watch the setups form live.