ICT Trading: Silver Bullet, Killzones and What Holds Up

ICT trading is one of the most discussed trading approaches online, and one of the hardest to learn from the source. It comes from Michael Huddleston, who teaches as the Inner Circle Trader on YouTube. His material runs to hundreds of hours, and each term tends to lean on three others you have not met yet.

This guide sorts the material into a framework you can check on your own charts. It explains the core ideas, gives the Silver Bullet, the Judas Swing, the 2022 mentorship model and the killzones with the conditions you can actually observe, and converts every window into New York time. It also follows one Silver Bullet setup that worked and one that failed, under one fixed rule applied to every day in the sample. Our wider overview of the vocabulary is the guide to Smart Money Concepts. This article follows our editorial policy.

ICT trading in 30 seconds

• Meaning: ICT stands for Inner Circle Trader, the online name of Michael Huddleston. The term covers both the teacher and his method.
• Core idea: price is read as moving from one pool of liquidity to the next, mainly stops beyond obvious highs and lows, with entries at gaps left by fast moves.
• Models: the best known are the Silver Bullet (three fixed one-hour windows), the Judas Swing and the 2022 mentorship model.
• Time: ICT gives all windows in New York local time, including daylight saving time.
• Evidence: we found no independently audited record of ICT results in the sources we reviewed. The candles show prices, not who traded them.

What is ICT trading?

ICT trading is a chart-reading method that explains price moves as runs from one pool of resting orders to the next, and that looks for entries in the gaps those runs leave behind, at fixed times of day.

The method works on a bare price chart. Huddleston uses no moving averages or oscillators. He marks where stop orders are likely to rest, where a fast move left a fair value gap, and which time window is open. Most of his lessons use index futures such as the E-mini S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, and forex pairs.

The mechanism behind the idea is ordinary order flow. Above an obvious high, triggered buy stops add buying. Below an obvious low, triggered sell stops add selling. In the ICT reading, a large trader uses that flow as the other side of its own order: a large seller above a high, a large buyer below a low.

That last step is a hypothesis, not something a chart can show. Open, high, low and close data do not say which stops triggered, whether any did, or who stood on the other side. ICT also goes further: he describes price as delivered by an algorithm that leaves readable traces. We found no evidence for that claim, so we treat it as part of the teaching, not as a fact about markets.

ICT and Smart Money Concepts: what is the difference?

Smart Money Concepts is the broad label, and ICT is the source of much of its vocabulary. Terms such as fair value gap, liquidity sweep, displacement and premium and discount spread through Huddleston’s lessons. Other coaches and indicator makers have since built their own versions, so definitions now vary.

In practice, almost every ICT trader uses SMC terms, but not every SMC trader follows ICT. The shared base is market structure, liquidity, order blocks and fair value gaps. What is specific to ICT are the time-based models: the Silver Bullet, the Judas Swing, the killzones and the midnight opening price as a reference.

Neither is as new as the names suggest. In the 1930s, Richard Wyckoff described an imagined large operator whose traces a trader can follow through price and volume. If you know the Wyckoff method, many ICT ideas will look familiar. A sweep of a low is close to Wyckoff’s spring.

Core concepts of ICT trading

Five building blocks carry most of the ICT models, and each one can be written as a rule. We keep each one short here, because our SMC guide and three spoke guides cover them in detail. The point is to know which part of a model is an observation and which part is interpretation.

Liquidity: buy-side and sell-side

In ICT, liquidity means resting stop and pending orders, typically just beyond obvious highs and lows. Buy-side liquidity sits above a high: buy stops of short sellers and buy orders of breakout traders. Sell-side liquidity sits below a low: sell stops of buyers and sell orders of breakout traders.

ICT reads a quick run beyond such a level as the market “taking” that liquidity. You can observe the run and the close back inside or beyond the level. You cannot observe the orders. Our guide to the liquidity sweep separates a sweep from a run and tests both on SPY and gold. ICT calls the next likely target the draw on liquidity, and he says himself that judging it is the main skill.

Market structure and the market structure shift

Market structure is the sequence of highs and lows; ICT’s key event is the market structure shift. In the 2022 mentorship, a market structure shift (MSS) is a break of a short-term swing point against the prior move, after liquidity has been taken. A higher high and higher low describe an uptrend.

The label is not used the same way everywhere. Some teachers place a change of character (CHoCH) before the MSS, others the other way round. The SMC guide linked above shows the differences in a table. Whatever word you use, write down which swing counts and whether a close is required.

Displacement

Displacement is a fast move with large candle bodies that breaks structure in a few bars. ICT reads it as a sign that the move is intended, not random. What you can see is momentum.

There is no fixed threshold for how fast is fast enough. That makes displacement the most subjective part of most models. A practical way around it is to require a fair value gap in the move, which is what ICT’s own 2022 model does.

Fair value gap

A fair value gap (FVG) is the price range between the first and third candle of a three-candle sequence whose ranges do not overlap. In a bullish FVG, the high of candle one stays below the low of candle three. The edges are concrete prices, so this is the most objective building block. ICT reads the gap as an imbalance that price tends to revisit.

Revisits are common, but they are not proof of a pull. In our fair value gap guide, gaps on SPY were often revisited, yet moves of the same size were about as common on other days. A gap broken by a close is read with the opposite role, as an inverse FVG, which our IFVG guide covers in detail. The closely related order block marks the last opposite candle before such a move.

Premium and discount

Premium and discount split a price range at its 50% level, which ICT calls equilibrium. In an uptrend, ICT looks to buy in discount, below 50%. In a downtrend, he looks to sell in premium, above 50%. This is close to the 50% line of a Fibonacci retracement.

The filter is a convention, and it depends on the range you pick. Two traders can measure from different swings and reach opposite answers. Decide in writing which high and which low define the range, before you look for an entry.

The ICT models at a glance

The table lists each model with conditions you can check on a chart. Times are New York local time, the way ICT gives them. The right column shows where the teaching varies or where the definition leaves room, which matters more than the label.

Model	Observable conditions	Where it varies
Silver Bullet	A fair value gap forms inside 3–4 a.m., 10–11 a.m. or 2–3 p.m. ET, in the direction of the next draw on liquidity; entry inside the window	Which liquidity is the draw; many summaries name only the 10–11 a.m. window
Judas Swing	Between midnight and 5 a.m. ET, price first runs one side of the Asian range, then crosses the midnight opening price and runs the other side	Later videos also use the label for index futures; the reference price can differ
2022 model	A run beyond an old high or low, then a break of a short-term swing with a fair value gap; entry on the return into the gap	How short-term the swing is; which target counts
Killzones	Fixed windows in ET: London 2–5 a.m., New York 7–9 a.m. (2017 lessons), an Asian window in the evening	Other teachers give New York as 8–10 a.m. or 7–10 a.m.

The ICT Silver Bullet

The Silver Bullet is a time-based model: a fair value gap that forms inside one of three one-hour windows, traded in the direction of the next draw on liquidity. Huddleston teaches it in his 2023 mentorship lesson on the ICT Silver Bullet. Many summaries name only the 10 to 11 a.m. window, but the lesson names three.

The three windows in New York time

All three windows are set in New York local time, so they move with US daylight saving time automatically. ICT tells viewers to set their charts to New York time to avoid conversion errors. The table converts them for readers in Chicago and London.

Window (ICT name)	New York (ET)	Chicago (CT)	London, most of the year	London, in the mismatch weeks
London open Silver Bullet	3:00–4:00 a.m.	2:00–3:00 a.m.	8:00–9:00 a.m.	7:00–8:00 a.m.
AM session Silver Bullet	10:00–11:00 a.m.	9:00–10:00 a.m.	3:00–4:00 p.m.	2:00–3:00 p.m.
PM session Silver Bullet	2:00–3:00 p.m.	1:00–2:00 p.m.	7:00–8:00 p.m.	6:00–7:00 p.m.

The clocks do not change on the same dates in the US and the UK. The US moves to daylight saving time on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November. The UK moves on the last Sundays of March and October. In the weeks between, London is only four hours ahead of New York, not five. Our guide to the trading sessions shows the same shift for the forex sessions.

The steps of the setup

The model is short, but each step needs your own definition before it becomes testable. This is how ICT describes it, in the order the conditions appear, from the draw on liquidity to the target:

1. Draw on liquidity: decide where price is likely to go next, for example the previous day’s high or low, a session high or low, or an open gap.
2. Window: wait for the one-hour window. Nothing before it counts for the entry.
3. Shift: price breaks a short-term swing in the direction of the draw. In ICT’s examples, it often runs a nearby high or low first.
4. Fair value gap: the move leaves a gap inside the window. That gap is the entry zone.
5. Entry and stop: enter on the return into the gap, inside the window. The stop goes beyond the swing extreme.
6. Target: the draw on liquidity. The trade may run past the end of the window.

ICT adds a size filter that is easy to miss. The setup should offer at least 10 index points in stock index futures, or 15 pips in forex, from the gap to the draw. He calls this the minimum framework. In SPY, which trades at about one tenth of the E-mini S&P 500 price, that is roughly $1.

ICT also says one of these setups forms every trading day. He means across markets and windows, read with his judgment. Under the strict rule below, one market and one window gave far fewer setups, so treat the claim as his statement, not as a measured frequency.

A Silver Bullet that worked: SPY on October 23, 2026

This example follows a fixed rule, applied to every day in the sample, and it is the first winner by date. It uses SPY 2-minute bars from Yahoo Finance for the 10 to 11 a.m. ET window. SPY is an ETF, not the futures contract ICT usually trades, and it shows only regular-hours bars. Our rule in short:

• Liquidity: the high and low of the bars from 9:30 to 9:58 a.m. ET, the morning’s extremes before the window. They match a 30-minute opening range, but we use them only as levels, not as a breakout signal.
• Sweep and shift: in the window, a bar trades beyond one of them, then a later bar closes back through the most recent swing point (a bar whose high or low exceeds the two bars on each side).
• Gap and entry: the last fair value gap formed by that close; a limit order at its near edge, placed only after the shift bar has closed and filled by 10:58 a.m.
• Risk: stop one cent beyond the sweep extreme; target the opposite morning extreme, at least $1.00 away. No fees, no slippage.

On October 23, every step appeared in order. The numbers below match the markers in the chart, and all prices are in US dollars. Times are bar starts, so a 2-minute bar’s close is known two minutes later.

1. Sweep: SPY traded below the morning low of 759.14 and reached 758.68 in the 10:26 a.m. bar.
2. Shift: the 10:30 a.m. bar closed at 760.25, above the swing high at 759.92.
3. Gap: the move left a fair value gap from 759.18 to 759.41.
4. Entry: the 10:34 a.m. bar filled the buy at 759.41. The stop sat at 758.67, the target at the morning high of 761.20.

The target was reached in the 10:40 a.m. bar, for about 2.4 times the risk. The chart still shows only a sequence of prices that met a rule. Whether sell stops below 759.14 triggered, or a large buyer took the other side, is not visible in these bars. The window also did not cause the move. It only decided which moves we looked at.

When the same rule fails: SPY on October 2, 2026

The first loser came three weeks earlier, and it looked just as clean at the moment of entry. This time the rule pointed down. SPY traded above the morning high of 772.09 and reached 772.49 in the 10:26 a.m. bar. The 10:32 a.m. bar closed at 771.60, below the swing low at 771.68, and left a gap from 771.80 to 772.02. The short filled at 771.80 in the 10:34 a.m. bar.

The stop at 772.50 was hit in the 10:42 a.m. bar, and price fell through the target later that morning. So the direction was right and the trade still lost. The stop sat only 70 cents away, just beyond the sweep high, and the market touched it before it moved. Small stops make the reward-to-risk ratio look good on paper, and they also make a stop-out more likely.

Across the whole sample, the rule found only four trades. We used SPY 2-minute bars from September 28 to November 6, 2026. Two days were excluded: November 4 for a bad print of 775.64 in the 10:00 a.m. bar, and November 5 for missing bars. Of 28 usable days, the rule found a setup on four. One reached the target, and three hit the stop. Four trades say nothing about an edge, in either direction, and a different reading of “liquidity” or “swing” would give different trades.

The Judas Swing

The Judas Swing is ICT’s name for a false move early in the day that runs the wrong way, takes stops, and then reverses into the day’s real direction. Huddleston named it after the Judas goat that leads a flock and then steps aside, and the label points to a trap. In his 2017 lesson on the Judas Swing, the definition is more specific than the name suggests.

ICT ties it to two reference points and one window. The window runs from midnight to 5 a.m. ET. The references are the New York midnight opening price and the Asian range, the range price traded in overnight before midnight. In a bullish case, price first pops above the Asian range high, then drops below the midnight opening price and below the Asian range low. Only that drop is the Judas Swing, and ICT says it often sets the London low of the day.

The model needs a bias before it starts. ICT says the higher timeframe must already point up, for a bullish Judas Swing, or down, for a bearish one. Without that bias, a drop below the midnight price is just a drop. He also says it does not form every day, but a few times a week.

Keep it apart from the opening range of the stock market. A Judas Swing in ICT’s definition happens overnight, mainly in forex. The first 30 minutes after the 9:30 a.m. ET stock open are a different concept, which our guide to the opening range breakout tests on its own terms. Later ICT videos also use the Judas label on index futures, so check which reference price a teacher means.

The ICT 2022 mentorship model

The 2022 model is the entry pattern from Huddleston’s free 2022 YouTube mentorship: a run on liquidity, a market structure shift with a fair value gap, and an entry on the return into that gap. He built it up over the first episodes, the third of which is titled “Internal Range Liquidity & Market Structure Shifts”. The fourth applies it to E-mini S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures on 2- and 5-minute charts.

The conditions are close to the Silver Bullet, without the fixed hour. In a bearish example from the episodes, the steps run like this, each one visible on a 2-minute chart:

1. Range: mark the recent low and high, and their 50% level.
2. Liquidity run: price trades above an old short-term high, where buy stops rest. ICT notes that for him “8:30 in the morning starts the hunt” in index futures.
3. Shift with a gap: price breaks below a short-term swing low and leaves a fair value gap. If there is no gap, there is no setup.
4. Entry and target: sell on the return into the gap, and target an old low or an open gap below the 50% level.

ICT stresses the waiting. In one example, price ran the highs but broke down without a gap, so he passed. That rule is helpful because it is checkable: a fair value gap either exists or it does not. The rest, which swing is “short-term” and which low is the target, still needs your own definition.

ICT killzones

Killzones are the fixed time windows in which ICT expects the main intraday moves of a session to start. They are a teaching convention, not exchange hours. ICT gives them in New York local time, so they shift with US daylight saving time and not with clocks in London or Asia.

The windows in ICT’s own 2017 lessons are narrower than many summaries. The London killzone runs from 2 to 5 a.m. ET. The New York killzone runs from 7 to 9 a.m. ET in his forex lesson. The Asian killzone covers about two hours from the Asian open in the evening, which ICT himself says moves with daylight saving time. Other teachers give New York as 8 to 10 a.m. or 7 to 10 a.m., as our trading sessions guide notes.

A killzone is a filter on when to look, not evidence that something happens then. Activity often picks up at the London open and around US data releases, many of which come out at 8:30 a.m. ET. That large players target liquidity in these windows is ICT’s interpretation. If you use a killzone, test it as one more variable, with and without the filter.

Who is Michael Huddleston?

Michael J. Huddleston is a US trader and educator who teaches as the Inner Circle Trader, mainly on YouTube and on X. His YouTube channel was created on February 28, 2012, and had about 2.26 million subscribers on November 7, 2026. He also posts as @I_Am_The_ICT on X. In a 2017 lesson he says he taught earlier on the BabyPips forum.

Most of his teaching is free, and some of it was sold as a mentorship. The 2022 and 2023 mentorship series are free on YouTube. Lectures from his paid 2017 mentorship have since been posted there as well.

Most biographical details in circulation come from his own videos and interviews. Stories about his first trades and early influences are repeated widely, but we found no independent records for them. We therefore leave them out here, rather than present his account as established fact.

Does ICT trading work? What we can and cannot show

We found no independently audited record of ICT results in the sources we reviewed, either for Huddleston or for his students. That does not prove the method fails. It means that screenshots and social media posts cannot settle the question.

His own videos carry a risk disclaimer. Many recent video descriptions quote the CFTC Rule 4.41 statement that hypothetical or simulated results have limitations. That fits much of the content: examples are marked on charts after the fact. Some videos show live executions, but a few trades cannot show a long-run edge.

Public competition results are thin as well. Trading forums often say Huddleston entered the World Cup Championship of Futures Trading, the long-running contest that Larry Williams won in 1987. The official historical standings list only the top finishers, usually the first five. His name is not among the published finishers as of November 7, 2026. That list cannot confirm whether he took part, how often, or what his results were, and we found no primary source for any figures.

Our own rule tests give no support for an edge, but they are narrow. The Silver Bullet sample above has four trades. Our spoke guides tested single daily rules on SPY since 2001: the order block rule averaged −0.16R per trade, the fair value gap rule −0.02R, and the low sweep rule +0.23R on SPY but −0.22R on the gold ETF GLD. Those are other setups on daily bars, gross of costs. They are not a test of ICT as a whole, and they do not show how an intraday version would do.

Pros and cons of ICT trading

Weigh both sides before you invest months in the material. The points apply to the method, not to any course built on it.

Pros:

• Clear zones: gaps and swing levels give concrete prices for entry and stop, not just a direction.
• No lagging indicators: the method works on price alone.
• Fixed windows: if you have a job, you can plan one hour a day instead of watching the market all day.
• Free material: the core lessons cost nothing, so you can check them before you pay anyone.

Cons:

• Room for interpretation: which high, which gap and which timeframe count is often left to the trader.
• Renamed old ideas: a fair value gap is a kind of price gap, an order block a demand or supply zone. The new names make it harder to compare with older literature.
• Unproven explanation: the chart cannot show institutional orders or an algorithm.
• Hindsight examples: many lessons mark setups after the fact.
• No audited record found: in the sources we reviewed, we found no independently verified track record of the method’s results.

Common mistakes with ICT models

Most problems come from mixing too many models, not from one wrong definition. These are the mistakes we see most often, and each has a simple fix:

• Forcing a trade in the window: a time window invites you to find something. On many days, the rule finds nothing, and that is a valid result.
• Converting the time wrongly: if you trade from London or Europe, check the weeks when the clocks change on different dates.
• Confusing killzones with the opening range: the New York killzone, the stock market open and a 30-minute opening range are three different things.
• Skipping the bias: the Judas Swing and the Silver Bullet both need a direction first. Without it, any reversal looks like a setup.
• Stacking labels: a sweep, a gap and an order block on one move are one observation, not three reasons.

How to test an ICT model yourself

Pick one model, write it as a rule, and keep it fixed for the whole test. The steps below turn a lesson into something you can count. Practice in a demo account first, for example with TradingView paper trading.

1. Write the rule: define the window, the liquidity level, the swing, the gap and the entry in plain words, as in our SPY example.
2. Fix the risk: place the stop by rule and size the position from that distance, as in our guide to position sizing.
3. Count every day: log the days with no setup, not only the trades. A trading journal helps.
4. Add costs: include commissions and a realistic fill, especially on 1- to 5-minute charts.
5. Compare: run the same rule without the time window, or at a random hour, to see whether the window adds anything.

Only after enough trades does a result mean something. Dozens of trades are a start, and a few hundred are better. Our guide to backtesting explains how to avoid the most common traps, such as changing the rule after seeing the results.

Conclusion: a useful vocabulary, an unproven promise

ICT gives you a precise way to describe intraday price action, but no proof that the description predicts it. Its strongest parts are checkable: a fair value gap exists or it does not, and a window is open or closed. Its weakest part is the story behind the candles, about institutions and an algorithm.

Use the models as rules to test, not as signals to trust. Our two SPY days show how similar a winner and a loser look at the moment of entry. If the vocabulary helps you wait for your level and follow a plan, use it. If it overwhelms you, start with price action and support and resistance, and add one ICT idea at a time.

This guide is education, not investment advice. Trading futures, options or leveraged products can lose more money than you expect, and past examples do not predict future results. Decide your risk per trade before you enter.

Frequently asked questions about ICT trading

What does ICT stand for in trading?

ICT stands for Inner Circle Trader, the online name of Michael J. Huddleston. The term refers both to him and to the method he teaches on YouTube. His channel was created in February 2012.

What is ICT trading in simple terms?

ICT trading reads price as moving from one pool of stop orders to the next. Traders mark obvious highs and lows, wait for price to run one of them, and enter in the fair value gap left by the move back. Entries are often limited to fixed time windows in New York time.

What is the ICT Silver Bullet?

The Silver Bullet is a fair value gap setup inside one of three one-hour windows: 3 to 4 a.m., 10 to 11 a.m. or 2 to 3 p.m. New York time. The trade aims at the next draw on liquidity and may run past the window. ICT asks for at least 10 index points of room in stock index futures, or 15 pips in forex.

What time is the Silver Bullet in London?

The 10 to 11 a.m. ET window is 3 to 4 p.m. in London for most of the year. In the weeks when the US and the UK change their clocks on different dates, it is 2 to 3 p.m. in London. The two other windows shift by the same hour, so check the calendar in March and in late October and early November.

What is the Judas Swing in ICT?

The Judas Swing is a false early move between midnight and 5 a.m. New York time that runs one side of the Asian range and then reverses. In a bullish case, price first rises above the Asian range high, then drops below the midnight opening price and the Asian range low. ICT trades the reversal only when the higher timeframe bias points the same way.

What are ICT killzones?

Killzones are fixed time windows in New York time in which ICT expects the main moves of a session. In his 2017 lessons, the London killzone is 2 to 5 a.m. ET and the New York killzone 7 to 9 a.m. ET. Other teachers use slightly different hours, so the windows are a convention to test.

What is the ICT 2022 model?

It is the entry pattern from ICT’s free 2022 mentorship: a run on liquidity, a market structure shift with a fair value gap, and an entry on the return into that gap. The target is an old low or high or an open gap on the other side of the 50% level. Without a fair value gap, the setup does not count. It was taught mainly on index futures.

Is ICT the same as Smart Money Concepts?

No, ICT is one source of the Smart Money Concepts vocabulary, with its own time-based models. Order blocks, liquidity and fair value gaps are shared. The Silver Bullet, the Judas Swing and the killzones are specific to ICT.

Does ICT trading really work?

We found no independently audited record showing that ICT is profitable. The patterns can be observed on charts, and some traders may profit with them, but the published examples are mostly marked after the fact. Only your own test of a fixed rule over many trades, with costs, can answer this for you.

Is ICT trading good for beginners?

Only in small steps. The material is large, the terms overlap and many rules leave room for interpretation. Learn to read market structure and price action first, then add one ICT concept at a time and test it before you add the next. Use a demo account while you learn.