How to Understand and Read Structure | ICT Concepts

[00:01] liquidity whatever it is but you can't seem to find an entry or you don't have confidence on what structure wants to do right now so a lot of you guys I've been seeing and especially in my Discord as well I want to start you know being able

[00:16] to let you guys try to understand how to understand when is the right time for structure understanding time-based um time-based trading and understanding when and when not to take certain trades just based off of understanding

[00:30] biggest thing that we're going to be talking about today so let's jump into talking about today so let's jump into the charts and take a look so here we go so the first thing when we're talking about structure and understanding where

[00:43] Market wants to go always understanding what's our bigger time frame bias so to be doing in this video we're going to be looking at NQ and just talking about right in this second where are we right this second to understand you know what

[00:56] as Traders is I don't really care what happens tomorrow I don't really care what happens the day after my job is to try to understand what's going to happen right now so let's look at the chart starting off on the daily and just look

[01:09] at where we are right now right let's zoom in say okay well we have a big daily fair value Gap here that we're bouncing off of and we're actually coming back up and now we're starting to reject this daily

[01:21] above it and then now starting to sell back off to the downside okay so I kind so now and then we have this four hour favorite I get bearish okay so now I'm at price and I'm trying to understand where where where can we go here right

[01:37] so this is this is how I normally think about it well if I'm looking at a daily year and I see that we're respecting this fair value Gap you can see that we've now respected consequent encroachment of

[01:50] this right the exact midpoint we came up but now we're rejecting I want to focus on what is being respected what's being disrespected and at this specific time we're respecting both bullish and bearish fair value gaps

[02:04] so what do you think I should do in this in the sense here well for me to have an external draw or a confident bias on what the draw and liquidity is I need to see one of these points get invalidated first before getting a clear

[02:20] understanding of what the drawing liquidity is right so for example if I'm looking at this and I'm bearish or bullish here I need to see this bearish fair value get get ran through to the upside for me to validate that the draw

[02:33] now becomes this high now if I'm bearish I need to see this big daily fair value Gap get ran through to validate the draw are these lows right so right now we're in in between so now okay so now we have our external bias right where count we

[02:47] can kind of go either way what's happening right now so now let's zoom in even more what's happening right now so you can see we came up try to break closing right back under and ended up running back under this right so which

[03:01] bullish fair value Gap so now where are we well we actually just came back down and we had this low here this internal low that we just swept so now this is going to act as our internal sell side right

[03:13] time frame right one thing I also want to notice is we are in a four hour bullish fair value Gap okay so now again what's right now well we just came down we swept our

[03:28] internal cell side level and now we're in a four hour bullish fair value Gap okay so at this point in time am I bullish or am I bearish well I'm a little bit more bullish but what are the things that I need to see happen first

[03:42] before I actually take a trade right this is what I want this is the main video the main reason I'm making this video is the idea of what has to happen video is the idea of what has to happen first before I take a high quality setup

[03:54] now I'm gonna repeat this again again because I want you to really understand start thinking when I'm looking to take a trade and I'm looking at the charts and I know what needs to happen

[04:06] you have to ask yourself what needs to happen first in this chart or in this market whatever I'm looking at for me to then get the opportunity to take a high quality setup right so for example um I took a es long today so and I'll

[04:21] I'll talk about why I did it as well on NQ now when NQ comes to here sell side and uh my bias for this is we had a

[04:33] standard deviation which is we won't get too too much uh into this standard deviation and we ended up coming to that four point and then ended up getting displacement so now I had confidence that NQ now goes back to

[04:46] confidence that NQ now goes back to discount sell side what normally happens after we take cell

[05:00] we go back to Discount of whatever that range is right which is 50 of the range to go on NQ after we took sell side here all right so that's an internal bias

[05:15] what has to happen so so if I'm short biased or if I want to take a shorter I want to take a long whatever it is if I want to take a long after looking at this what am I looking for I'm looking for ES to have a validated long bias

[05:29] as well as NQ to have a validated long bias and what things are now adding on bias and what things are now adding on to this long so basically the way that I like to think about this is how many things can I add onto this setup that

[05:44] gives me more conviction what is in my favor here okay so if I'm long what's my favorite number one we just swapped South Side number two we're in a four hour bullish fair value Gap number three standard deviation has no

[05:57] met its algo point of Interest which means confidently speaking we should go back to Discount okay that's number three number four yes at the time has also swept sell side number five es is also bouncing off of a

[06:12] four-hour fair value Gap number six es has also just ran through a bearish fair value Gap number seven or whatever number I'm on ES also has equal highs

[06:24] acting as buy side that I'm expecting get taken so all of these things are now starting to add up where I can basically say this is when a point in time where everything in structure is in favor of what I want to

[06:39] trade is in favor of what my bias is leaning towards right now I'm not guessing now I'm making a um you know a decision based off probability but I'm not guessing saying okay we're here I think that we're

[06:53] probably just going to bounce based off of just this one thing I'm looking at high probability trading setup is is when you can see all of these things giving you even more confirmation onto your bias so when I say a lot of people

[07:08] get confused when I say this in my Discord I normally say there's not enough structure or wait for structure there's not enough structure or either wait for structure what I mean by this when I say wait for structure is

[07:21] bias when I say wait for structure that's when I personally mean I don't have enough confidence in what the market wants to do right now right the second for me to take any sort of trade

[07:36] for example if we're looking at es today so this is the long the long we took on to before before this even happened if we were going to go to here right now at this point in time I'm bullish right why am I bullish because we have

[07:49] yes sweeping a low if I zoom out to the four hour we can see that we're in a four hour fair value Gap here as well as this one hour fair value Gap right under us so I'm bullish at this point in time but when I zoom into the one minute

[08:04] I am very picky with my entries because I want every single thing to validate when we're going now I don't like to enter settle wide stop loss and then

[08:16] and then eventually go in I want to get the best entry possible based off of what structure is telling me so at this point in time when we take when we take uh this this this uh cell side here a lot of you guys

[08:29] are automatically trying to jump into a position when there's no structure right you see this right here and you're like oh my God I need I'm gonna take a long early and there is people in the live session today when we were trading that

[08:42] a long right here we have oh my God you know sell side swept we have then look what happens just ends up getting ran through right so why does that happen why do I say wait for structure well number one the first

[08:57] structure well number one the first thing is notice What level in what time we're looking to take a long off of because the thing that's giving us our bias here is we think that we're going back to buy side because we are in a

[09:12] four hour bullish fair value Gap we just swept a one hour sell side level so do you think a one minute break of structure in a one minute fair value Gap is going to give me a good entry no you're gonna get faked out so many times

[09:28] structure in a fair value Gap that's why I wait for a bigger time continue to play this out Market's still going okay we swept internal right so now we swept internal cell side so now any any sort of Longs are a

[09:44] better probability right again I'm still there's not enough structure there's not do now you can maybe notice that we now have accumulation what what how do the markets move right

[09:57] in waves right a lot of it's a community accumulation manipulation distribution that's basically power of three right when we get this first initial move to the downside there's no structure here right this is the distribution

[10:10] now what normally is going to come after accumulation right so when we get the distribution moved to sell side or two whatever the draw on liquidity is just going to get a straight up move now we might now let the market tell you

[10:26] telling me that we know we want to Skyrocket up right wait for the market to move and then look for an entry and look for the because I already have an idea that the draw is going to be these equal highs I

[10:40] that because we've now swept sell side we're starting to accumulate on this watching notice we're actually getting displacement to the upside now and not only that but look at the bigger time

[10:53] only that but look at the bigger time frames we now have an imbalance on a five minute fair value Gap or on any five minute time frame so now is when I whether it be in this for Value Gap whether it be you know later on whether

[11:08] it be right now now is when I can actually start looking for Longs because I let the lower time frames accumulate and settle down and now the market is picking back up showing breaker

[11:21] frame right notice on the five minute right look how cleaner this looks how look how much clean cleaner this looks when we have a low here and a five there this is nothing this little a little

[11:37] move here does nothing it doesn't mean anything right wait for more structure to start to form so now at this point in time the trade I ended up doing is I was even more picky I said you know what I'm not I don't trust this just yet

[11:51] what's gonna really make me trust this and and the way that I'm gonna look to trade this is I'm going to look to trade the inverse fair value Gap so again I like to focus on what is being respected what is being disrespected that is

[12:04] giving me a clear understanding and more even more confidence in what my what my bias and what the draw liquidity is so if I'm if I'm bullish here and I think that this is the draw liquidity what needs to happen for that for that

[12:16] to happen right what needs to happen for my bias to then work well notice we have this 15-minute bearish fair value Gap so if we're bearish this needs to hold and we would sell off right if the draw is lower

[12:29] right if it is but if the draw is higher this then get an inverse free value get to then go higher right higher right and now that we've swept sell side I am

[12:43] now expecting this to get ran through but I'm not I'm not calling it I'm not I'm going to wait for it to get ran through even more even more confirmation onto what my already existing bias is telling me you can be in Longs right now

[12:56] it would not be bad to be in Longs right now pre-existed to that break of the fair value Gap but I'm so picky and want the a plus plus I want everything to the a plus plus I want everything to validate my bias so guess what I wait

[13:09] validate my bias so guess what I wait I wait I wait I wait boom fair value gaps gets disrespected on a bigger time frame gets absolutely ran through what do I look for

[13:21] a pullback back into that fair value Gap right here inverse fair value Gap looking at the 15 minute right when we break through this after sell side's taken and we have these equal highs above us that's when I

[13:34] to blast off we're ready because everything that needed to be done is now done right sell side's now been swept we've now shown validation of us holding a bigger time frame for our fair value Gap we've had accumulation at the lows

[13:49] We've ran through a bearish fair value Gap what's the what else do that's everything here is in favor of my bias everything that I just listed is in favor of my bias right so I wait for it to get ran through

[14:04] to get ran through I entered Longs with the team equal highs here and three equal highs here these are where I think the Market's going to so I put my stop

[14:19] set my two TPS look at the risk reward look at the risk reward and notice what happens right after respected what's being disrespected creates another five minute bullish fair

[14:34] creates another five minute bullish fair value gaps continues to respect it and then we get a monster move to the draw this is efficiency in price when the market knows where it wants to go when the algorithms are hunting the

[14:48] draw in liquidity and we're drawing to whatever those highs or those lows are to stop out those Traders this is what efficiency looks like now what gave me this bias not only on ES

[15:01] right but not only on ES but when parabolic moves happen like this when do we normally see that happen when we get fast moves like this

[15:14] let's go back to NQ what was NQ doing at this time

[15:31] right here so when we're taking Longs on NQ yes right we want we want to look at NQ to validate our bias right we want to look at NQ to validate our bias so when I'm looking at NQ and I say okay sell

[15:44] side's now been swept okay you know we're ha we're having a run up we have have you know you know 15 minute whatever it is right okay I'm gonna mark right okay and also I'm in a four-hour fair value Gap right let me I'll take

[15:57] this off this weekend easier to see now what do we expect price to do again like we were talking about before we have an entire range here an entire range which is that fit that I have right this

[16:10] whole range that has now been met we have had a high sold all the way off the sell side and with standard deviation

[16:25] notice where we ended up bouncing initially initially NQ ends up selling off bounce off the 2.2.5 rebounds to Discount of this range of

[16:40] this range now sweeps by side distributes lower two cell side bounces off four now that now this is this is a market maker model we have manipulation this is by side of the curve this is

[16:55] side's now taken where do we expect price to go and this is where you'll is when you'll see when you will find the most efficient and fastest moving uh moving moves or moving trades towards whatever the drawing liquidity is

[17:10] at this point in time I know NQ is going back here 50 percent back to Discount premium and discount back to Discount premium and discount regular ICT concepts of this entire

[17:25] range that has now been fulfilled all the way back to sell side right I'm very go back to discount so now another thing to be even more so now another thing to be even more precise to be even more precise

[17:40] don't know if we're going to stop at 50 I don't know if we're going to stop a little bit above it or maybe below it use standard deviation internally looking at sell side where was the first initial here let me Mark this this is

[17:54] this is uh our 50 mark where was the manipulation move here using standard deviation before we had now had this initial move to the upside on a bigger time frame right here this is our manipulation

[18:09] right below our sell side level before that we're looking for distribution back to the upside right but this is now our manipulation move so now I use standard deviation

[18:33] manipulation started to where the break of structure was to the upside notice I'm not looking at this because this isn't a discount this is where

[18:45] this isn't a discount this is where Market's going I delete this 50 percent I have my my my four my four area my projected of where I want aligned with every bias notice every single bias here all of the things that we've been

[18:57] talking about this video on what is giving me confidence or conviction to where the market wants to go right now all of the things are lining up with all of the things are lining up with this so let's see how this plays out

[19:10] where do you think we stop where do you think we stop where the where do you now we know on a bigger time frame we know and Q wants to run to discount at this range but where are we stopping exactly

[19:27] tick to the tick is where we stop and just in case you can't fathom this let me draw it in again because so I'm not I'm not mistaken

[19:49] now all of these things aligned with each other draw on liquidity is right when you can just and again all of this is just experience it's building confidence with these Concepts and with these ideas

[20:03] the concepts of standard deviation the concepts of discount premium the understanding power of three manipulation distribution accumulation understanding where Market wants to go now I don't care about what it's going

[20:17] to do in the future I don't care about what happens after we've now you know it what happens in between I'm focused on what is the market telling me right now and what we've just been going over today is exactly that

[20:31] all from the start of a creating a bias right right when I see these equal High form I know that's going to be a Target even in the morning this morning looking at yesterday I said we have nice equal highs here I'm looking for us to come

[20:43] to become a future Target because I know that there's stops resting here that we're probably going to come back to hunt but I need a lot of things to happen first before I can take that trade I already have the trade ID in my

[20:57] head but there's no way that I'm taking it right now because it's not ready yet there's not enough structure so I'm hoping you guys enjoyed this video and got a better

[21:10] understanding of how I think and how I wait for structure and build conviction wait for structure and build conviction and build confidence through time if you did enjoy this video make sure to subscribe leave a like if you have any

[21:22] questions feel free to leave them in the comments as well but enjoy the rest of your day and I'll see you guys in the next one peace