WickCheck / Trading school / Learning corner / Intermediate
Intermediate Level 2 of 3
Structure, gaps, order blocks and liquidity, plus how to tell a real edge from luck. Classic setups to test yourself.
Your path: 9 lessons in order
- Why 30 trades prove nothingHow luck hides in small samples and how many trades you actually need.
- When a great result is just luck: overfittingHow to tell a real edge from a curve-fitted one.
- Why most strategies need a human behind the screenWhat a backtest can and cannot tell you about discretionary trading, and how to use both.
- RSI(2) strategy explainedLarry Connors' short-term pullback rule for index markets.
- Bollinger band mean reversionBuying closes below the lower band and exiting at the middle.
- London open Asian range strategyUsing the Asian range as liquidity for the London session.
- Order block strategy explainedTrading returns to the last opposite candle before a strong move.
- Turtle soup strategy explainedFading failed breakouts of obvious highs and lows.
- New York open liquidity sweep strategyTrading the first hours of New York after a sweep of any untaken high or low.
Words to know at this level
46 terms. Open any of them for a picture, how to spot it and a rule you can test.
Break of structure (BOS)A candle closing beyond the last swing high (bullish) or swing low (bearish) in the direction of the trend.Change of character (CHoCH)The first break of structure against the current trend, an early sign the trend may be turning.Fair value gap (FVG)A three-candle pattern where the wicks of the first and third candle do not overlap, leaving a gap the middle candle moved through quickly.Order block (OB)The last opposite-colour candle before a strong move, seen as the zone where large orders entered.Buyside and sellside liquidity (BSL / SSL)Buyside liquidity rests above highs (buy stops); sellside liquidity rests below lows (sell stops).Equal highs and equal lows (EQH / EQL)Two or more highs (or lows) at nearly the same price, seen as an obvious pool of stops.Liquidity sweepPrice trades beyond a high or low, triggers the stops there, and closes back inside.Turtle soupA reversal trade against a breakout of an old high or low, named after the Turtle traders whose breakout rules it fades.Asian rangeThe high and low made during the quieter Asian session, often swept in the London or New York morning.KillzonesThe time windows when ICT traders expect the biggest, cleanest moves: the Asian, London open, New York AM and London close killzones.London close killzone10:00 to 12:00 New York time (15:00 to 17:00 London time), when European traders close positions and the day's move often retraces.Daylight saving time (DST) (DST)The clock change in spring and autumn. The UK and the US change on different dates, so for a few weeks a year London is only 4 hours ahead of New York.Premium and discountThe upper half of a price range is premium (expensive), the lower half is discount (cheap).Equilibrium (EQ)The 50% level of a dealing range, the line between premium and discount.Dealing rangeThe range between a clear swing high and swing low that price is currently trading inside.Higher-timeframe bias (HTF bias)The expected direction from a bigger timeframe (4h, daily, weekly), used to decide whether to look for longs or shorts on the entry timeframe.Profit factor (PF)Gross profit divided by gross loss. Above 1 made money, below 1 lost money.ExpectancyThe average result per trade, usually in R. Positive expectancy means the strategy makes money on average.Forward testTrading the strategy on new data, in real time, usually on demo or small size, after the backtest.Sample sizeHow many trades a result is based on. Small samples can look great or terrible by pure chance.OverfittingTuning a strategy so closely to past data that it captures noise instead of a real edge.Supply and demand zonesAreas where price left quickly, showing unfilled orders: demand below price, supply above.ConfluenceSeveral independent reasons pointing to the same trade.Top-down analysisReading the market from the higher timeframes down to the entry timeframe.TiltAn emotional state where you stop following your rules.A+ setupThe cleanest version of your strategy, where every condition lines up.Inside barA candle whose high and low sit inside the previous candle's range.MarubozuA big candle with little or no wick: one side was in control the whole period.Swing failure pattern (SFP)Price trades beyond a swing high or low but closes back inside it.MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence)The gap between a fast and a slow EMA, with a signal line and histogram.DivergencePrice makes a new high or low but an oscillator does not.ATR (Average True Range)The average size of recent candles, including gaps. A volatility measure.VWAP (Volume-weighted average price)The average price of the session weighted by volume, reset each day.Volume profileA sideways histogram showing how much traded at each price.Point of control (POC)The price with the most volume (or time) in a volume profile.Value area (VAH / VAL)The price range holding about 70% of a session's volume, with a high (VAH) and low (VAL).Weekend gapThe jump between Friday's last price and the first price after the weekend.Liquidity run (Stop hunt)A move that clears the stops beyond a level and keeps going, unlike a sweep that reverses.Opening range breakout (ORB)The high and low of the first minutes of a session, traded on a break.Daily openThe opening price of the trading day, used as a bias reference.Dollar index (DXY)A measure of the US dollar against six major currencies, mostly the euro.CorrelationHow closely two markets move together, from +1 (same way) to −1 (opposite).Risk on and risk offMarket mood: risk on favours stocks and commodity currencies, risk off favours the dollar, yen, franc and often gold.Trailing drawdownA loss limit that moves up with your highest balance or equity.Consistency ruleA prop rule that limits how much of your profit can come from one day.Out-of-sample dataData your strategy was not built or tuned on, kept aside for an honest check.
← Back toBeginnerNext level →AdvancedFull ICT models and the finer concepts behind them: displacement, inversions, breakers, timing and intermarket divergence.
Education only, not financial advice. Definitions vary between teachers; these are ours, written for clarity.