The ‘ICT Power Of 3’ concept is a key component of any trading strategy or model developed by Michael J. Huddleston a.k.a. 'The Inner Circle Trader' (ICT), and explained as under:
1. Typical Bullish Day
Figure 1
Price will go below the opening price at midnight [all times refer to New York local time] to lure retail traders into going short. This is the ‘accumulation phase’ where smart money traders (SMT) will buy the shorts placed by retail traders. Then, price will rally higher to take out ‘liquidity’, which is called the ‘manipulation phase’, during which SMT will either hold or sell a portion of their positions. Eventually, price will retrace and become range-bound in an area near the high of day and close near the high, known as the ‘distribution phase’, where SMT will sell the remaining positions to retail traders willing to go short.
2. Typical Bearish Day
Figure 2
Price will go above the opening price at midnight to lure retail traders into going long. This is the ‘accumulation phase’ where smart money traders will sell the buy orders placed by retail traders. Then, price will rally lower to take out ‘liquidity’, which is called the ‘manipulation phase’, during which SMT will either hold or square off a portion of their positions. Eventually, price will retrace and become range-bound in an area near the low of day and close near the low, known as the ‘distribution phase’, where SMT will square off the remaining positions to retail traders willing to go long.
3. Typical Bullish Week
Figure 3
Price will go below the opening price at Sunday’s opening to lure retail traders into going short. This is the ‘accumulation phase’ where smart money traders will buy the shorts placed by retail traders. Then, price will rally higher to take out ‘liquidity’, which is called the ‘manipulation phase’, during which SMT will either hold or sell a portion of their positions. Eventually, price will retrace and become range-bound in an area near the weekly high and close near the high, known as the ‘distribution phase’, where SMT will sell the remaining positions to retail traders willing to go short.
4. Typical Bearish Week
Figure 4
Price will go above the opening price at Sunday’s opening to lure retail traders into going long. This is the ‘accumulation phase’ where smart money traders will sell the buy orders placed by retail traders. Then, price will rally lower to take out ‘liquidity’, which is called the ‘manipulation phase’, during which SMT will either hold or square off a portion of their positions. Eventually, price will retrace and become range-bound in an area near the weekly low and close near the low, known as the ‘distribution phase’, where SMT will square off the remaining positions to retail traders willing to go long.
Another technical analysis concept from Michael J. Huddleston is ‘ICT Killzones’, which are the highest probability time-ranges for price to make big moves in the markets. This is an integral part of ‘ICT Power Of 3’ and both are to be used in conjunction to see the markets like the ICT. The researcher has dealt only with two of ‘ICT Killzones’ here, which are:
- ICT London Open Killzone – 02:00 to 05:00 New York local time
- ICT New York Open Killzone – 07:00 to 10:00 New York local time which is extendable to 11:00 due to release of important economic reports, news, Fed chairperson speeches, etc. scheduled at 10:00.
Some important things to bear in mind:
- The researcher has considered market state to be bullish if the amount of difference from open to low is less than open to high. Similarly, market state is bearish if the amount of difference from open to low is more than open to high. Days and weeks with neutral market state, i.e., where the amount of difference from open to low was equal to the amount of difference from open to high, were omitted. They were very few and the researcher believes that the omission did not affect the findings to a significant degree.
- Sunday was omitted in calculation of average daily movement and average hourly movement for each pair to prevent inconsistencies. For the same reason, it was not considered in finding out frequency of days when price made high/low of bearish/bullish week.
- All time ranges, etc. have been considered in the form of New York local time, adjusted for Daylight Savings Time (DST).
- Average Daily Movement – It is the average of the daily ranges (low to high) of that particular year.
- Average Weekly Movement – It is the average of the weekly ranges (low to high) of that particular year.
- Average Daily Movement during ‘Accumulation phase’ – It is the average range of the ‘accumulation phase’ (open to high/low) of ‘bearish’/’bullish’ days of that particular year.
- Average Weekly Movement during ‘Accumulation phase’ – It is the average range of the ‘accumulation phase’ (open to high/low) of ‘bearish’/’bullish’ weeks of that particular year.
- SMT – ICT terms smart money traders as ‘SMT’. These traders know how to keep themselves in line with the algorithm and profit from trading. On the other hand, retail traders, according to Michael J. Huddleston, are those who are not trading but ‘gambling’. These ‘traders’ do not have an understanding of the market which they can rely upon and not hop from strategy to strategy, indicator to indicator instead.
- ‘ICT Killzones’ has been shown only in Figure 1 to serve as an example. The explanation provided with Figure 4 does not comply completely with the figure, and it is because ICT’s concepts are not fixed rules. Also, the main idea has not been invalidated, as we can see in the figure that the low of the week formed after the week’s high was formed.
Quoted from:
technical analysis concept (ICT Power Of 3) in the foreign exchange market.See also: