ICT IPDA (Interbank Price Delivery Algorithm): The Complete Guide

In January 2017, Michael Huddleston opened Month 5 of his mentorship series with an unusual statement: that what he was about to teach was the most important part of everything he had covered so far. That month's topic was IPDA — the Interbank Price Delivery Algorithm. Not order blocks. Not fair value gaps. Not kill zones. The framework that explains why all of those concepts work.

IPDA is the theoretical foundation of the ICT methodology. Every other concept — the AMD cycle, the Judas Swing, the liquidity sweeps, the FVG entries — exists because the IPDA operates the way it does. Understanding IPDA does not change how you execute trades. It changes why you understand them to be valid, and it adds a higher-timeframe reference structure that most ICT traders are missing entirely.

What IPDA Is

IPDA stands for Interbank Price Delivery Algorithm. The word algorithm refers to a defined set of rules used to complete a task. Applied to markets, IPDA is the set of rules that Huddleston proposes governs how price is delivered across financial instruments — currencies, indices, commodities, and bonds.

Under IPDA theory, price movement is not random. Every significant move in price occurs for one of two reasons:

Liquidity collection: The algorithm drives price to zones where stop orders cluster — above prior highs (buy-stop liquidity) or below prior lows (sell-stop liquidity). It sweeps these stops to fill institutional orders, using the retail traders' stop losses as counterparty liquidity for large-scale position entries.

Imbalance rebalancing: When price moves aggressively in one direction, it creates price inefficiencies — zones where trading did not occur at every price level. These are fair value gaps in the ICT framework. The IPDA returns price to these zones to restore efficient two-sided trading before continuing the delivery direction.

These two drivers alternate in a predictable cycle. Price sweeps liquidity on one side, then rebalances an imbalance, then sweeps liquidity on the other side, then rebalances another imbalance. This oscillation — between External Range Liquidity (ERL) and Internal Range Liquidity (IRL) — is the mechanical description of everything you see on every price chart. The IPDA data ranges define the timeframe scale of each cycle.

The Three IPDA Data Ranges

The operational core of the IPDA is its three nested lookback ranges: 20 trading days, 40 trading days, and 60 trading days. Each range is simply the highest high and lowest low of the relevant period, measured in trading days from the current date. The highs and lows of these ranges are where buy-side and sell-side liquidity accumulate — they are the primary institutional targeting levels for each timeframe scale.

The three ranges are nested: the 20-day range fits inside the 40-day range, which fits inside the 60-day range. When the highs or lows of multiple ranges converge near the same price level — a 20-day high that is also near the 40-day high and the 60-day high — that level is a particularly dense liquidity pool. It represents months of accumulated stop orders from positions taken at every scale simultaneously. The algorithm sweeping this level collects maximum institutional counterparty volume in a single move.

The Quarterly Shift — IPDA's Directional Reset

Every 90–120 days, the IPDA produces a directional shift in the market's primary trend. This is the quarterly shift — the most important concept in IPDA analysis for traders who want to understand the higher-timeframe context of the markets they trade.

Markets do not trend indefinitely in one direction because the algorithm needs to continually generate interest from both buyers and sellers to maintain liquidity. If price simply ran up for 12 months without a reversal, retail participation would dry up on the sell side — there would be nobody to take the other side of institutional buy orders. The quarterly shift ensures both directional deliveries occur within each cycle, generating the two-sided order flow the algorithm requires.

The quarterly shift mechanics: the algorithm delivers price in one direction (bullish) for approximately one quarter, targeting the 60-day range highs and accumulating long positions. As the quarter ends, the 60-day extreme is swept — collecting maximum long-side stop orders (buy side liquidity) from traders who have been long for the quarter. This sweep is the quarterly Judas at the largest scale. The algorithm then reverses and delivers price in the opposite direction for the next quarter, targeting the 60-day range lows.

How to identify the current quarterly shift: Open the weekly chart. Look back 3–4 months. Has price changed primary direction (higher-high/higher-low structure reversing to lower-high/lower-low) within that window? If yes, a quarterly shift is in progress. Identify the most recent shift's starting point — the weekly candle where the MSS occurred at the quarterly scale. The direction from that point is the current quarterly bias. All lower timeframe analysis — monthly, weekly, daily — should align with this quarterly direction for maximum confidence.

IPDA Data Ranges vs Monthly Profile — How They Differ

IPDA data ranges and the monthly profile are related but distinct. Understanding the difference prevents the common error of conflating them.

In practice, the two frameworks complement each other. The monthly profile gives a fixed reference that does not change during the month. The IPDA data ranges give a rolling reference that updates daily and identifies where the next sweep targets are forming within the monthly context. Use the monthly profile for the monthly bias (premium/discount). Use the IPDA data ranges to identify which specific high or low the algorithm is targeting next.

IPDA and Intraday Trading — The Highest-Timeframe Connection

Most ICT intraday traders begin their analysis at the daily or weekly chart. IPDA extends that analysis to the 60-day scale — and this extension adds a layer of confidence to intraday entries that no lower timeframe can provide.

The connection works through what can be called the IPDA delivery chain:

60-day range → quarterly target: The 60-day high or low is the quarterly delivery target. This is where the algorithm is delivering price over 3–4 months.

40-day range → weekly/monthly target: The 40-day high or low is the intermediate target the algorithm uses to progress toward the 60-day extreme. Each monthly profile's draw on liquidity typically aligns near the 40-day range extreme in the delivery direction.

20-day range → daily/weekly target: The 20-day high or low is the immediate intraday target — the level the Judas Swing is aiming for on any given week. When you mark the pre-market high as a Judas target during morning prep, you are identifying the current session's micro-version of the 20-day range extreme sweep.

AMD session → kill zone entry: The intraday AMD cycle and kill zone entry are the micro-delivery mechanism that executes price toward the 20-day target in the IPDA delivery chain.

The practical result: when your intraday T2 target (the session's ERL) aligns with the 20-day IPDA range high or low, you are not just targeting a random prior swing. You are targeting the level the algorithm has been building toward for the past 20 trading days. This alignment — intraday entry at the kill zone, T2 at the IPDA 20-day range extreme — is the maximum-confidence ICT intraday setup.

How to Mark IPDA Levels on NQ — Step by Step

Marking IPDA levels takes 5–10 minutes and should be done on the first trading day of each month. Here is the exact process for NQ on TradingView:

Step 1 — Open the NQ daily chart. Set the timeframe to 1D (daily). This is the timeframe the IPDA lookback operates on — every "day" in the 20/40/60 count is one trading day on the daily chart.

Step 2 — Count back 20 trading days. Starting from yesterday (the most recently completed daily candle), count back 20 candles. Mark the highest wick high and the lowest wick low among those 20 candles. Label them "20D High" and "20D Low." Calculate the midpoint: (20D High + 20D Low) / 2 = 20D EQ.

Step 3 — Count back 40 trading days. Continue counting back to candle 40. Mark the highest wick high and the lowest wick low across all 40 candles (not just the second 20 — the full 40). Label them "40D High" and "40D Low." These levels are wider than the 20D range — they encompass roughly two months of price action.

Step 4 — Count back 60 trading days. Continue to candle 60. Mark the highest wick high and lowest wick low across all 60 candles. Label "60D High" and "60D Low." These are approximately three months of price action — the quarterly range.

Step 5 — Identify current price position. Is current price above or below each range's EQ? 20D position determines the immediate intraday bias (above = bearish, below = bullish). 40D position confirms the weekly/monthly direction. 60D position confirms the quarterly direction. All three pointing the same way = maximum IPDA alignment for a directional trade.

Step 6 — Identify the next IPDA draw on liquidity. Given the current quarterly bias (from the 60D position), which specific IPDA level is the next delivery target? If bearish quarterly, the nearest unswept 20D, 40D, or 60D low is the draw on liquidity. Mark it. This is the level that every lower timeframe delivery is progressing toward.

IPDA in Practice on NQ — Monthly Application

Here is how IPDA data ranges are applied to NQ at the beginning of a new month:

First of month (e.g. June 2 ET): Open NQ daily chart. Count back 20, 40, 60 trading days from May 30 (last trading day of prior month).

20-day range (approx. April 30 to May 30): High 21,880, Low 21,060. 20D EQ: 21,470. Current price: 21,640 — above 20D EQ. 20-day bias: bearish.

40-day range (approx. March 28 to May 30): High 22,140, Low 20,820. 40D EQ: 21,480. Current price above 40D EQ. 40-day bias: bearish.

60-day range (approx. February 28 to May 30): High 22,380, Low 20,620. 60D EQ: 21,500. Current price above 60D EQ. 60-day bias: bearish.

All three IPDA ranges: bearish. Current price in premium at all three scales. Quarterly shift assessment: the last quarterly shift to bearish occurred 6 weeks ago — still in the early-to-mid phase of the bearish quarterly delivery. The 60D low at 20,620 is the quarterly target.

Monthly plan: Look for bearish intraday setups targeting the 20D low (21,060) as T1 and the 40D low (20,820) as T2 this month. Any weekly Judas sweep above the 20D high (21,880) followed by an MSS and FVG entry is a maximum-confluence bearish setup — the intraday manipulation is sweeping the 20-day IPDA BSL before the algorithm resumes its quarterly bearish delivery.

Common IPDA Mistakes

Counting calendar days instead of trading days. IPDA uses trading days — days the market is open, excluding weekends and public holidays. A 20-trading-day lookback from a date in late May covers approximately 4 calendar weeks (not 20 calendar days). Always count candles on the daily chart rather than calendar days. This is the single most common IPDA marking error and it shifts every level.

Treating the IPDA ranges as absolute support and resistance. The IPDA range highs and lows are liquidity targets — they are levels the algorithm is delivering toward and then sweeping through, not levels where price necessarily reverses. The sweep of the 20-day high is typically a manipulation event (the Judas at the 20-day scale) that precedes a reversal. But the level itself is not a support/resistance boundary that holds — it is a stop cluster that gets consumed before the delivery continues.

Using IPDA ranges in isolation without the full ICT framework. IPDA levels identify where price is going. They do not tell you when or how to enter. The IPDA 20-day high tells you that a Judas sweep of that level is likely in the coming week or two — but the actual entry still requires kill zone timing, a confirmed sweep with body close, an MSS, and the 1st Presented FVG. IPDA is the target map. The 2022 Model or Venom Model is the entry execution. Neither is complete without the other.

Ignoring the quarterly shift and using IPDA levels countertrend. If the quarterly shift is bearish and the IPDA 20-day high has just been swept (confirming the weekly Judas), the IPDA is indicating bearish delivery toward the 20D and 40D lows. Trading a bullish entry from the 20-day low at this point is countertrend to the quarterly delivery — lower probability even if the intraday structure looks clean. The quarterly shift filter is not optional.

Frequently Asked Questions