ICT trading, explained properly.
Free, in-depth guides to the Inner Circle Trader method: when to trade, what to look for on the chart, and how to manage the trade once you are in it. Every concept in plain language, with worked examples.
What is ICT trading?
ICT is the trading method taught publicly by Michael J. Huddleston, known as the Inner Circle Trader. His full mentorship is free on his YouTube channel, but it runs to hundreds of hours of video. This site turns it into written guides you can search, read in order and come back to.
The method rests on three questions: where the stop orders are, when the market is most likely to move, and what price leaves behind when it moves with intent. Answer those three and most ICT vocabulary falls into place.
- Liquidity: where the stops areBuy stops rest above old highs and sell stops below old lows. Price is often drawn to them before it makes its real move. Read the liquidity guide.
- Time: when to pay attentionKill zones and macro windows narrow the day to the hours when setups tend to form. See the macro times.
- Delivery: what price leaves behindFair value gaps, order blocks and market structure shifts mark where a move started and where price may return. Start with the fair value gap.
Learn ICT in seven steps
The order that works best is the one in the beginners guide. Each step builds on the one before it.
Market structure
Swing highs and lows, and the market structure shift that signals a change in direction.
Liquidity
Buy-side and sell-side liquidity, and why price sweeps it before it reverses.
Daily bias
Deciding which way the day is likely to go before you look for an entry.
Kill zones
The four session windows when ICT setups are most likely to form.
Fair value gap
The three-candle imbalance that most ICT entries are built around.
Order block
The last opposing candle before a strong move, and when it is worth trading.
Power of three
Accumulation, manipulation and distribution: how a single day tends to unfold.
Guides by topic
Every guide explains one idea in full, with a worked example and the mistakes to avoid.
ICT models
Complete sequences from bias to entry.
Time and sessions
When to be at the chart, and when not to.
PD arrays
The price levels ICT entries are built on.
Managing the trade
Where the stop goes, where to take profit, and what to record.
Markets
How the method applies to the instruments people actually trade.
Going further
Confirmation, divergence and the questions that come later.
The free ICT One Model Playbook
Most people stuck with ICT are not short of concepts. They are short of one model they follow every day. Five pages to fix that.
- What to study and what to skip. The order, and why sticking to one era saves months.
- One model as a checklist. Six steps, plus what disqualifies a setup.
- A pre-session sheet. Bias, levels and the six boxes, ready to print.
- A trade log with a “skipped” column. The field a normal journal leaves out.
Send me the Playbook
Five pages, straight to your inbox.
One email a week at most. Unsubscribe in one click.Free ICT tools
Small tools that run in your browser. No account, no download.
Who writes this
Every guide on this site is written by Michael Phillips, from Michael J. Huddleston’s public teaching. Where the site uses its own working rules rather than ICT’s, the guide says so.