Transcript for:
Understanding Market Dynamics in ICT

okay folks welcome back okay this teaching is going to be specifically dealing with accumulation manipulation and distribution okay the ICT concepts used in this module the ICT power of three importance of developing anticipatory price skills engineering liquidity in the market neutralizing liquidity in the market market making and pairing of orders what accumulation looks like in bull and bear conditions where does manipulation occur in bull and bear conditions what distribution looks like in bull and bear conditions all right so we're looking at a crude depiction of a open high low close bar and for the purposes of this teaching every individual bar or candle it's going to be referred to as a daily range or daily bar okay now everything I'm going to suggest to you here is applicable to every time measurement okay I know is every time interval if it can be charted this same phenomenon or concept can be applied to it so regardless of what time frame you can pull up and form it into a chart as long as you have a beginning time the highest value to the lowest value and an ending in terms of measuring time this concept is applicable okay but for the sake of our discussion here and for something you can practice and look for a few times a week the ICT power 3 is basically a concept of looking for accumulation waiting for manipulation and then looking for a period of distribution now I look at candlesticks because it helps to be able to see after many years of looking at price action it's very hard on your eyes as long as I've been doing it staring at spending lots of time in charts both on a screen and on paper I can see that my my eyesight has diminished over the years one of the benefits of knowing what you're looking for if spending far less time in the charts then most traders that like me and before me we spent a lot of time researching and looking at things so I gravitate towards candlesticks because it's easier on the eye not that there's any magic behind it but the same concept is seen here with a bullish open high low close bar to the left is comparable to what you would see any bullish close candlestick much much easier to see by staring at that versus that little tick to the left or the little tick to the right that distinguishes the open and close on individual candles or bar okay so back to our discussion using the open high low close bar it's gonna be a lot easier for me to describe the phenomenon that makes up my ICT power 3 and the origination behind this idea was inspired by my mentor Larry Williams he made a point in one of his lectures they ended up repeating several times for a number of years but he made a point of making a remark about he wished he knew how the traders or who the traders were that could be buying below the open or selling above the clothes on bullish or up close days and I took that as a personal challenge and I spent of the first quarter of my 25 years mastering just that concept because I felt that it was enough for me to work towards cracking that code if you will and I think I've done it I've thought of other people so I know that it's something that is real it's tangible it can be repeated not only in my own results but other people that have learned from me but it all hinges on the reference point that starts our time integral and again we're referring to every bar or open high low close bar depiction in my diagrams as a representation of one daily bar okay so a full 24-hour period it does not matter that if it's Forex or commodities or bonds or whatever it is if it's a market and it can be measured in time intervals the highest value the lowest value a time at which it starts trading in it time and ends trading you only need is for reference points so the open high low and close is all we're concerning yourself with here now the first of the four is the opening price now for definition terms this is the initial value price prior to any imbalance and I'll talk more about that as we go the closing price is the ending value price post price imbalance okay the portion it makes up the range between the open and closed is referred to as range expansion and this is a dynamic price imbalance now this can be a bullish or bearish imbalance relative to the open but for example sake our first one is going to be referring to a bullish up close so this would be a bullish range expansion or a dynamic price imbalance of a lot more movement to the upside seeking a higher price above the initial value price of the opening price in layman's terms we're looking for a bullish close okay as far as it goes in terms of accumulation manipulation and distribution or power three the first thing we have to determine is what is accumulating now if we're bullish on the marketplace we would be looking for accumulation in the form of long positions building up it's gonna be around that opening price and I'll talk more about the opening pricing in future tutorials but the opening price just above it or below it no more bullish that's where Long's are accumulated now who's accumulating there's long positions smart money when we're bullish and we're anticipating a bullish range expansion to the upside okay or higher close we would be hunting a manipulation cycle immediately after the opening price so on a daily range that opening price if we're bullish we want to be buying at that opening price or below it ideally why would we want to be buying below the opening price we're more bullish because the market makers are going to be looking to engineer short liquidity what does that mean if a market breaks quickly below an old low there are traders that look to be a breakout entry so they'll look to sell short on a stop this engineering forces liquidity in the market place to sell at a very very low price that run below an old low or a quick sudden movement will entice triggers that are on the sidelines just watching price and you know what that feels like if you watch the lower timeframe charts any sudden moves our your heart starts to have palpitations you get excited you think it's gonna keep going lower what happens you take debate you go in there and you sell short in the market stops on a dime reverses and goes north immediately below the opening price on a daily range when it's bullish this initial drop down is very significant because it's going to engineer willing parties to sell short that selling short will flood the market with the counterparties to smart money wanting to buy it at a deep deep discount the other form of manipulation that takes place when it's bullish is neutralizing long liquidity that means there's individuals it's probably already long or just recently bought near the opening price in the drop down below the opening price will upset their long position in other words it'll just run their stop not to engineer them into a new lower entry but to knock them out of an initially well-placed position so we're seeing two conditions they're happening at the same time the opening price and below it when more bullish is knocking individuals out that's right that would otherwise be profitable the market rallies and it's also inducing or engineering of short-term sentiment shift to bearishness by running short-term lows not only would we take out long holders with their sell stocks but traders that want to sell short on a stop they would be in they would be placed in on the market on the wrong side and while we're selling short in otherwise bullish market so finally as we interpret this the manipulation is we're looking how the market makers pair orders by pairing these sell stops with smart money buying interest we can see the manipulation cycle as it really is a run below the opening to accumulate long positions before the big up move and finally the distribution cycle where smart money pairs its long exits selling out of their lungs with pending buy interest now that pending buy interest is going to be in the form of buying above an old high that would be a breakout artists idea they're gonna want to break out above a previous high and they would view that as strength buying string while smart money will look to sell their long position to those breakout artists that want to buy above an old high or those individuals that would probably try to sell short intraday maybe have a buy stop above intraday high smart money would look to run through that intraday high and sell it to those by stops so their long and exits would be paired with a short term intraday swing high if we seen a nice little retracement lower intraday before the close that's where an area of distribution would come in so we're looking at a reverse idea here the open high low close with a down close and again this representation is a crude depiction of a daily open high low close bar and we could see that same thing in the form of a bearish closed candle much easier on the eye but we're gonna take our focus back to the open high low close bar and again the opening price much like we just said but just for completeness sake it is the initial value price prior to any imbalance the closing price is the ending value price of that time interval that you're measuring in other words what time frame you're looking at if it's daily it's the ending value for the daily range post or after the price imbalance in Lourdes the movement it took place between the open and where it's now closing and we have the range expansion cycle that is basically dynamic price and balance so between the opening price and the closing price when we're bearish this is what we would be expecting or anticipating in price became a lower close now in the form of power three what is accumulating well from the opening when we're bearish short positions are building up and who's building up short positions smart money at the open price or just above the opening price when we're bearish we would be anticipating manipulation and what form of manipulation will we expect to see engineering long liquidity no words we're looking for a quick sudden movement higher to entice breakout artists that want to buy want to break out and they would be placed in on the wrong side of the marketplace another form of men population this would be neutralizing short liquidity in other words those individuals that would already be short in the marketplace that would otherwise profit from the future coming decline they are knocked out by having thereby stops tripped so they're neutralized in their short position and their short position being neutralized is a buy stop so that buys thought that hits the market as a market order smart money will sell to their willing buy stop somewhere so if the market trades up to your buy stop that buy stop becomes a market order to buy at the market smart money will be counterparty to that they will sell to those buy stops but their sell position is to ride it lower and make money manipulation and it's true a sense is in this form when we're bearish at the opening price or above it by stops are being paired with short interest on the form of smart money and finally at the end of the day the distribution cycle is seen where smart money pairs it's short exits or covering with pending sell interest in other words smart money's going to be short in together of short positions they have to buy it back and they will be targeting some old low what would be resting below an old low sell stops those sell stops once they're triggered they become market orders to sell to market place which floods the market with sellers and the best time to cover a short is when there's a flood of sellers in the marketplace willing to sell at a low price and this would be the distribution cycle of the daily range okay so what does accumulation look like in a full condition or when it's bullish it's not important we zoom in here and see any of the details I just wanted you to see the overall characteristics and the green shaded area you can see that there's a consolidation around the opening price and that consolidation leads way to a decline which gives us the framework for what does this manipulation look like in a bull condition well this is what manipulation looks like right before the March starts to trade higher after a consolidation when the accumulation of lungs are being made the problem is you see that decline below that green shaded area as weakness and who would be wanting to buy ahead of that Smart Money traders okay they have very deep pockets and the market has a tendency of creating this fake move okay we're in choices or induces the opposite mindset or sentiment this drop down out of that consolidation when we're overall bullish is manipulation it's knocking out short-term lows so anyone that's longer knocked out we can't for the profit from the up move and it's also putting traders in on a breakout short and they're gonna be on the wrong side of the marketplace and if finally at the highs it a day we have our distribution where the smart money exits their long positions by selling above an old high whereby stocks would be resting so there's buy stocks would be hit floods the market with buy stops buyers at a higher price smart money's going to sell their long positions to higher buying interest traders in the form of their buy stocks being tagged okay in what does accumulation look like in a bare condition we have a consolidation and price moves higher which would be the manipulation now if you look at the left side of the chart you see a double top that's exactly where what buy stocks would resign okay lesser informed traders would have their buy stocks resting above that it would view that as a stiff resistance price point and those levels are too clean the market will in fact want to go through their probe it for buy stops those buy stocks are gonna trigger anyone that's short is now allowed to be profitable and the move going lower so they're neutralizing their shorts by hitting their box tops also breakout artists let's see that equal high to the left of the chart and the consolidation that move out of that they would be buying that on a break or trying to buy strength in their eyes both are incorrect and what we're actually seeing is a market driving higher to pair traders to buy higher or at a high price and short sellers on the smart money camp they're going to be selling short to those individuals that want to buy a high price to make a profit as the market moves eventually lower towards the end of the day we see the distribution cycle come in we're short holders in the smart money camp we're going to be looking to collapse their short positions to get have a short position you have to buy it back you have to look for an area to run below old lows you look at the original consolidation 20 pips below that that's what we see the load a form it's exactly where smart money would be collapsing their short positions for a day trade and we see the ending cycle their distribution smart money collapsing their short and a form of buying it back at an area where sellers below the market would be interested in selling overall if you understand this concept and there's lots more of information that's coming weigh in by way of my tutorials you can look at the market place like this and see the original consolidation here in the green market reaches down below the consolidation into an area of liquidity which is 10 pips below equal lows there sell stocks are triggered where smart money would be buying once those sell stops are tripped they're buying below the day the market rallies up we have an expansion move or reins expansion up into a move of running 20 pips above the old high and your distribution cycle goes into the marketplace and there's a complete daily range using the power 3 concept that I've outlined here so hopefully you found this teaching insightful there'll be more built on this with the future tutorials and until next time I wish you good luck and good trading