Glossary

The vocabulary, in plain English

Our signals use ICT methodology terminology: Class A setups, FVGs, displacement, killzones, sweeps. If those words are new, this page decodes every term you'll see in a signal so you can read it without prior ICT training.

Each signal also carries a Traditional TA paragraph in parallel (VWAP, EMA, RSI, MACD). See methodology for how the two perspectives are assembled.

The setup

Class A: The specific four-element setup we publish: a liquidity sweep, followed by a Market Structure Shift (MSS) in the opposite direction, with a Fair Value Gap (FVG) printed inside the displacementleg that caused the shift. When all four line up in one session, it's a Class A.
MSS— Market Structure Shift: Price breaks a recent swing high or low against the prior trend, signaling a potential reversal. A bullish MSS breaks a swing high after a sweep of lows; a bearish MSS breaks a swing low after a sweep of highs.
FVG— Fair Value Gap: A three-candle pattern where the middle candle moves so fast that the candle before and the candle after don't overlap, leaving an unfilled gap in price. Markets often return to fill this imbalance, making FVGs natural retest zones.
iFVG— Inverse Fair Value Gap: An FVG that price returned to, traded through, and is now using as the opposite type of barrier. A bullish FVG that gets broken becomes a bearish iFVG. The level was support, now it acts as resistance.
Displacement: A strong, fast directional move (typically wide-bodied candles in a row) that creates the FVG inside the Class A setup. The displacement is the “force” that drives the structure shift.
OTE— Optimal Trade Entry: The 62–70.5% Fibonacci retracement zone of a displacement leg. ICT methodology treats this as the highest-probability entry area when looking to participate in a continuation.

Liquidity

Sweep: Price moves above a recent high (or below a recent low) just enough to trigger stop orders sitting there, then reverses. Often shows up as a long wick. The reversal after the sweep is what creates the setup.
BSL— Buy-Side Liquidity: Pools of buy-stop orders sitting above recent highs. When price moves up to grab them, it's a “BSL sweep”, sometimes the start of a reversal lower.
SSL— Sell-Side Liquidity: Pools of sell-stop orders sitting below recent lows. An “SSL sweep” takes them out, often before reversing higher.
EQH / EQL— Equal Highs / Equal Lows: When price touches the same level twice without breaking through, it leaves twin highs (or twin lows). These act as liquidity magnets; stop orders cluster there, making them frequent sweep targets.
PDH / PDL— Previous Day High / Low: Yesterday's session high or low. Common reference levels that often act as magnets and sweep targets early in the next day's session.
DH / DL— Daily High / Low: The current trading day's session high or low (as it forms in real time). Different from PDH/PDL which references yesterday. A sweep of DH/DL during overnight or the next session is a common reversal trigger.
PWH / PWL— Previous Week High / Low: Last week's overall high or low across all sessions. Higher- timeframe liquidity that often sits untouched for days before getting swept. A PWH/PWL sweep carries more weight than an intraday sweep. It took longer to build and clears a deeper pool of stops.

HTF gaps

NDOG— New Day Opening Gap: The price gap between the previous day's 17:00 ET close and the 18:00 ET reopen, the futures maintenance break. Acts like an FVG on a daily timeframe and is often a magnet for the next session.
NWOG— New Week Opening Gap: The price gap between Friday's 17:00 ET close and Sunday's 18:00 ET reopen. Often a strong reference level for the entire upcoming week.
CE— Consequent Encroachment: The 50% midpoint of an NDOG or NWOG gap. ICT methodology treats CE as a magnet. Gaps with significant width often have price retrace into the CE before continuing. When a Class A setup forms after a CE reaction, the analysis prose calls it out as part of the narrative context.

Sessions & killzones

Killzone: A specific time window when institutional volume tends to cluster, raising the probability of meaningful moves. Different killzones suit different trading styles. Scalpers focus on Silver Bullets, day traders on London Open and NY AM, etc.
Asian session: Roughly 18:00 ET (Sunday onward) to 03:00 ET. Lower volume, often range-bound. The Asian high and low become reference levels for the European and US sessions that follow.
London Open: Around 02:00–05:00 ET. The first major liquidity event of the global trading day; often sets the day's directional bias.
London Silver Bullet: A 1-hour micro-window inside the London session where sharper moves cluster, roughly 03:00–04:00 ET.
NY AM: Roughly 09:30–11:00 ET. The US morning session. Peak institutional activity for index futures, often driven by the cash equities open.
NY AM Silver Bullet: 10:00–11:00 ET. A sharp-move window during the NY AM session.
Cash session: The NYSE cash equities trading session, 09:30–16:00 ET. Index futures track this window most closely.
PM session: Roughly 13:00–16:00 ET. The afternoon US session, quieter than NY AM but with its own reversal patterns.
PM Silver Bullet: 14:00–15:00 ET. A common afternoon reversal/continuation window.
Off-hours: Anything outside the named sessions above. Lower-conviction environment overall.
Asian / London / PM Hi & Lo: The high and low printed during the respective session window. Become reference levels in later sessions. When price returns to grab one, that's a swept liquidity tag in the signal.

Swing structure

Swing high / swing low: A local turning point. A candle whose high (or low) is greater than (or less than) the candles immediately around it. The building blocks of market structure.
STH / ITH / LTH— Short-, Intermediate-, Long-Term High: A hierarchy of swing highs by significance. STH is a small local high, ITH is a swing made of multiple STHs, LTH is a swing made of multiple ITHs. Same hierarchy applies to lows (STL/ITL/LTL). Used to identify which level of structure a break really matters at.
Swing sequence: The labeled chain of recent swing highs and lows leading into a setup, e.g., LTL → STH → ITL → LTH. Lets you see at a glance which structure level the move is interacting with.
Power of 3— Accumulation → Manipulation → Distribution: A three-phase model of how a session or day tends to unfold. Accumulation is the consolidation phase (often the Asian session) where positions build inside a range. Manipulation is the false move that sweeps liquidity outside that range (often early London or pre-NY), trapping breakout traders. Distribution is the real, sustained move in the opposite direction (often the London or NY session proper). When a Class A setup forms after a manipulation sweep, the day is following the Power of 3 arc.

A note on language

ICT vocabulary describes what price did and where structure lives. It is not a trade recommendation language. We use it because it's precise about market microstructure. Nothing on this site is financial advice or a trade signal. See disclaimer.