ICT Market Maker Buy Model and Sell Model (MMXM) | Darya Filipenka

These six videos of the ICT Market Maker Buy Model (MMBM) and Sell Model (MMSM) series on @I_Am_The_ICT / YouTube Channel is all you need to understand the market:

 

 

1. ICT Charter Price Action Model 6 - Amplified Lesson

2. ICT Charter Price Action Model 6 - Algorithmic Theory

3. ICT Charter Price Action Model 6 - Universal Trading Model 

4. ICT Charter Price Action Model 6.2 - Amplified Lesson 

5. ICT Charter Price Action Model 6.3 - Supplementary Lesson

6. ICT Mentorship 2023 - Market Maker Models

 

 

 The ICT Market Maker Buy and Sell Model (MMXM) pairs very well with the ICT Advanced Market Structure.

 

Reference: 

Darya Filipenka @ Twitter/X

Darya Filipenka (2023) - Unlocking Success in ICT 2022 Mentorship: The Smart Money Guide to the Full ICT Day Trading Model.

Nasdaq 100

Nasdaq 100 (monthly bars). Yearly, Quarterly, Monthly Highs and Lows and Targets. First month up.

Cup & Handle pattern? No.  

 

 

 

 Nasdaq 100 (weekly bars). Four weeks up. Current inside.

Nasdaq 100 (daily bars)

 

Nasdaq 100 (1 hour bars) - Last week narrow range. This one still inside. Close above balance line. 

 

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 'Major Red News'.

 

 

US Stock Indexes | Shallow Retracement Into Early-Mid-December Now Likely

Dow Jones Industrial Average (weekly bars)

Dow Jones Industrial Average (daily bars)

Monthly weekly and daily trends are up. 

S&P 500 (weekly bars)

S&P 500 (daily bars)

Eleven days, three levels and nearly 6 * ATR above the re-accumulation low of November 9.

 

Nasdaq 100 (weekly bars) 

Nasdaq 100 (daily bars) 

CNN Fear & Greed Index (daily bars).

 NYSE McClellan Oscillator (daily bars)

 

CBOE Volatility Index (monthly bars). Very close to multi-year lows.

SPX Put/Call Ratio = 1.63 for Nov 24 2023.

 

 Seth Golden (Nov 25, 2023):
The Trifecta of Overbought Conditions:
92% of SPX above 20-DMA, highest in 2+ yrs
McClellan Oscillator > 80+
S&P 500 2 std. above 50-DMA (RSI also 70+)

 

 

 

Four weeks+ of price expansion beyond daily, weekly and quarterly levels. Last week narrow daily and weekly ranges. Multi-month inflation melt-up? Possible. Allen Reminick suggests a creep up into November 27 (Mon) or December 1 (Fri) followed by some rather shallow 23-50% move down into December 8 or mid-month, some X-mas rally, sideways into January 12 and up into March-April 2024. Possible. [ Allen Reminick (Nov 20, 2023) - S&P 500 Projection Into June 2024 ]

 

See also:

Richard Wyckoff's Distribution Schematics. 

The Three-Day Rolling Pivot Level | Mark B. Fisher

 

Mark Fisher is no ordinary trader. The ACD trading system (an opening range breakout concept) he described in his 2002 book The Logical Trader is the one he and his 75-plus traders at MBF Clearing Corp. still use to make a living on the New York markets day in and day out. Does it work? Ask anyone at Fisher's firm, and they'll tell you it does. Unlike many in the business of helping traders, Fisher is happy to share his system because he believes the more people there are using it, the more effective it will be. However, the following is not specifically about Fisher's ACD system, but about his Three-Day Rolling Pivot concept (from the same book) and the general function of balance levels in daily and weekly market maker templates, about the market maker algorithm, and the origins and basic rationale of short-term trading. The 'rolling pivot' is an extension of Fisher's pivot range concept. 

 

In the charts above a Six-Day Moving Average defines a mathematically exact balance level for all segments of the weekly and daily market maker cycles. The same is true for the balance levels defined by Fisher's Three Day Rolling Pivot, by the Weekly Pivot and by the Daily Pivot. All four govern market structure and price action within and between the trading days inside the weekly cycle. Balance levels, market structure and price action reflect the market maker logic and the process of auctioning the order flow. These balance levels can be utilized in many ways, such as to determine entry points, stops and trailing stops. Is the current price out of balance, what is the distance towards these balance levels? Price is always being moved between 'liquidity pools' and (re-) balance levels. Across hours, sessions, days and weeks the market maker orchestrates the exact same eternal recurrence of the accumulation-expansion-distribution-retracement-cycle between round numbers or levels (e.g. 0, 25, 50, 75; 0, 10, 20, 30 or 0, 20, 40, 50) also known as the pump & dump cycle.

 

3 Bar Patterns - the smallest fractals of market structure. Inside bars are ignored, the last bar of a fractal becomes
 the first of the next. Where are the round number levels, the breakout levels, liquidity, the balance levels?

Identify in the above charts day-trading, short-term trading and swing trading setups. Define price targets, entry-, exit-, stop-levels, profit/loss ratios. Be sure everything is logically solid and proportionally related to daily and weekly highs and lows and the balance levels.

 

» All my life I've been a 60/40 player, content to clear my 20%. «   -  Jesse Livermore

Programming the Livermore Market Key

Richard D. Wyckoff's Composite Operator a.k.a. Market Maker a.k.a Broker manages the order flow of 'buyers' and 'sellers' with a price generating auction algorithm realizing the highest mathematically possible return in 'dealing' with the flow of orders. Later on in life Wyckoff became a broker and market maker himself. His schematics and Jesse Livermore's tables illustrate the complete logic and algebra of the market maker's auction process and the pump & dump cycle. The auction algorithm works ever since it was invented. Livermore was able to do the math without calculator, paper and charts. Aged fourteen he started as a quotation board boy at a Boston brokerage business and literally saw patterns in the waves of numbers flowing each day from the ticker tape. Livermore came to understand that scheme generates more profit than any other business activity ever known to man. Fifteen year old Wyckoff had also begun as a broker’s runner to soon experience the exact same epiphany. Market makers were tremendously successful in multiplying their returns with the invention of electronic exchanges and with the invention of the daily global scheme between the 'Asian Session', the 'London Session', and the 'New York Session'. Wyckoff, Livermore and W.D. Gann were contemporaries, trading the same commodities, stocks and indices in the same exchanges. All were initiated into the auction algorithm. Wyckoff and Livermore were larger-than-life traders while Gann's true returns have always been subject of debates. He sold many expensive courses and forecasts. And what he sold to subscribers and students and how he actually traded for a living were very different things: Gann traded a double-tops-and-double-lows-in-the-direction-of-the-daily-trend-strategy - plain and simple pump & dump trading Wyckoff-Livermore style. What should we learn from all this? Maybe the lesson is to keep things as simple as possible as Tom Hougaard suggested.

 

Market maker pump & dump levels.

The accumulated length of the intraday price swings in the 1-minute chart of any instrument exceeds the daily true range several dozen times every single day. Imagine the factor on sub-1 minute time frames without having to deal with slippage nor transaction costs. Let that sink in. How is that possible? Understand the opening range concept and the logic and purpose of 'breakouts' and 'false breakouts' from that range. Monday's high and low define the opening range for the week; the high and low during the first thirty minutes the opening range of a session; the first three trading days of a new quarter limit the quarterly opening range; and the range of the first trading week of the year becomes the yearly opening range. Know the logic, principles and precision of price action and of market structure as taught nowadays e.g. by ICT or Stacey Burke: Price moving in one direction always creates the exact same imbalance on the opposite side. Imbalances are re-balanced by retracements of at least 50%. Price expands in proportions of 1/8ths or 1:1, 2:1, 3:1 etc. Price is always timed and measured and moves across all times frames always proportionately to the above listed opening ranges towards (re-) balance levels. Three and nine minutes are fractals within the hour; three hours a fractal within a session and the trading day; three and nine trading days are fractals within and across weeks; three and nine weeks fractals within months and quarters. Ideally Wednesdays and Fridays are timed for ending and re-starting three day fractals within the weekly market maker template.   

 

Calculation of the Three-Day Rolling Pivot:

Three-Day Rolling Pivot Price = (three-day high + three-day low + close) / 3
Second number = (three-day high + three-day low) / 2
Pivot differential = daily pivot price – second number
Three-Day Rolling Pivot Range High = daily pivot price + pivot differential [omitted in above charts]
Three-Day Rolling Pivot Range Low = daily pivot price – pivot differential [omitted in above charts]

The Probabilistic Mindset of Successful Traders - Mark Douglas

Reference:
Mark B. Fisher (2002) - The Logical Trader: Applying a Method to the Madness.

Mark B. Fisher (2002) - Spotting Breakouts As Easy As ACD.

Jesse Livermore (1940) - How To Trade In Stocks. 

Richard D. Wyckoff (1931) - The Wyckoff Method of Trading in Stocks.

 

Mark B. Fisher

The ‘ICT Power Of 3’ Concept & ‘ICT Killzones’ | Rounak Agarwal

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:

1. ICT London Open Killzone – 02:00 to 05:00 New York local time
2. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. All time ranges, etc. have been considered in the form of New York local time, adjusted for Daylight Savings Time (DST).
4. Average Daily Movement – It is the average of the daily ranges (low to high) of that particular year.
5. Average Weekly Movement – It is the average of the weekly ranges (low to high) of that particular year.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. ‘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:

Rounak Agarwal (2023) - A study to assess the validity of Michael J. Huddleston’s

technical analysis concept (ICT Power Of 3) in the foreign exchange market.

 

See also:

Michael J. Huddleston (2023) - ICT Liquidity - The Financial Market's Zero Sum Game.

 Michael J. Huddleston (2023) - External & Internal Range Liquidity: Auction Process & Institutional Order Flow. 

Michael J. Huddleston (2023) - The ICT Power of 3. Accumulation - Manipulation - Distribution (AMD).

TPR (2022) - Daily Range = Accumulation + Manipulation + Expansion + Distribution (AMD). 

ICT Liquidity - The Financial Market's Zero Sum Game | Michael J. Huddleston

For a trader or institution to buy or sell an instrument, stock, currency pair, etc. it is necessary that there is another trader or institution or 'the crowd' with the equivalent opposite position. If the smart money (capital controlled by institutional investors, market mavens, central banks, funds, and other financial professionals) wants to buy a financial instrument, they will need sellers in the market. Our presumptions are: 

1. All financial markets are a zero sum game. 
2. In all financial markets price is generated and driven by the market maker's auction algorithm. 
3. The market maker's price generating algorithm continuously calculates, re-balances and manages the flow of orders always in line with the fundamental 'Minimum of 50% Retracement-Rule across all time-frames: fractions of a second, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and quarters. 
4. The algorithm generates the mathematically highest possible return for the market maker.
   

 

For the market makers, for the big dealers in the exchanges - for the smart money - liquidity is provided by the dump money, by the crowd, at levels where the dump money usually has its Stop loss, Buy and Sell orders. Driving price beyond these order-levels, the market maker collects liquidity - the money of the uninformed. Smart money activates these stop, buy and sell orders to feed and place their contrary positions in the market. Richard D. Wyckoff - a brilliant speculator, and later on a broker and market maker himself - explained the accumulation and distribution process of the 'market maker' - of the Composite Operator - in all detail ninety years ago. The Composite Operator manipulates the price in order to collect 'free money'. Liquidity.  

 

There are two types of liquidity:

1.          Buy Stops Liquidity (BSL)

The BSL is originated by Stop Losses of sell orders, after the BSL is taken, the market reverses to the downside, because banks use the BSL to place sell orders in the market. 

 

 

Regarding Buy Stops Liquidity (BSL) focus on:
PMH - Previous Month's High
PWH - Previous Week's High
PDH - Previous Day's High
HOD - High Of Day
OLD HIGH - Swing High
EQUAL HIGHS = Retail Traders' typical 'Resistance'.

When BSL is taken, the market reverses to the downside.

 

2.          Sell Stops Liquidity (SSL)

The SSL is originated by Stop Losses of Buy orders, after the SSL is taken, the market reverses to the Upside, because banks use the SSL to place Buy orders in the market. 

 

 

Regarding Sell Stops Liquidity (SSL) focus on:
PML - Previous Month's Low
PWL - Previous Week's Low
PDL - Previous Day's Low
LOD - Low Of Day
OLD LOW - Swing Low
EQUAL LOWS = Retail Traders' typical 'Support'.

When SSL is taken, the market reverses to the upside.

 

The Stop Hunt (SH) is a manipulation movement used by the Market Makers to neutralize liquidity (stop losses). It's a false breakout above /below the zone where there is liquidity. Market Makers usually use High Impact News to take liquidity.
 

High Impact News Calendar

Always pay attention to the news calendar, to know the pairs that will move, generally, pairs with many news forecasts('High Impact'), those currency pairs, stocks, bonds, etc. are going to move (trending) during the day or week.

Reference:
WadeFX (2021) - Market Structure & Powerful Setups.

See also:

Richard D. Wyckoff (1931) - The Wyckoff Method of Trading in Stocks.

Jason A. Jankovsky (2007) - Buy/Sell 50% Retracements. 

2022 ICT Mentorship.
2022 ICT Mentorship - Notes.

TPR (2022) - Richard D. Wyckoff's Accumulation & Distribution Schematics.

TPR (2022) - The Daily & the Weekly Market Maker Cycles: ICT Intraday Trading Templates. 
TPR (2022) - Daily Range = Accumulation + Manipulation + Expansion + Distribution (AMD).