The method, once
Four steps. Everything else in this guide is detail on one of them.
ICT X watches the daily, weekly and monthly candle for a sweep that fails. Price reaches for liquidity and gets rejected. That failure is the setup. The entry is not the sweep; it is the break of the CISD line that follows, and the gap that break leaves behind.
A sweep is a heads-up. A CISD break is a trigger. Trading the sweep alone is the most common way to misuse this tool.
The HTF panel
Three groups of higher-timeframe candles, drawn to the right of live price so you never change timeframe to read bias.
Each group shows its own number of closed candles plus the one still forming. Set them separately. Daily 3, Weekly 2, Monthly 1 is a good starting point.
Groups only appear where they make sense. Daily candles hide above the 4-hour chart; weekly and monthly hide above the daily. When a group is hidden, the others slide left to fill the space, so you never get a gap where something used to be.
Direction is carried by fill: a solid body closed up, a hollow body closed down. So a hollow gold candle is a down week, not a "faded" one.
CRT: the four-candle story
The numbers on the HTF candles are a sequence. Read them left to right and the candle tells you what stage the move is at.
The stage you care about is 2. That is the sweep that failed, and it is the only one that arms everything downstream: the FTD level, the CISD line, and the entry alerts.
3 and 4 are confirmation that the move is running. If a 2 appears and price closes back through its wick, the setup is dead and ICT X removes the marking.
The sweep & FTD level
When a candle sweeps and fails, it leaves a price behind. That price is the reference everything else measures against.
ICT X draws this level on the HTF panel and projects it onto your chart, so you can see exactly which price the higher timeframe just reached for.
The level stays while the setup is valid. If price closes back through the sweep candle's wick, the setup is invalidated and the marking is withdrawn.
CISD: the trigger
Change In State of Delivery. The sweep says a reversal is possible; the CISD break says it started.
Read it as a question: has delivery changed? Price pushed down to take liquidity. If buyers can close price back above where that entire push began, the sellers who drove it have lost control.
The entry is the CISD break, or the BOS that follows it. Not the sweep. Turn on the optional CISD tag to label each line on your chart.
CHoCH & BOS
Two labels, one distinction: has the trend turned, or is it continuing?
CHoCH
Change of Character. The trend just flipped. Price broke a swing in the opposite direction to the prevailing move.
BOS
Break of Structure. The trend is continuing. Another break in the direction already established by the CHoCH.
Structure is calculated on a fixed engine: the 1-hour chart, or your chart's timeframe if that's higher. Drop from 1H to 5M and the CHoCH and BOS stay exactly where they were. You get 1-hour structure with 5-minute execution, and that is deliberate.
CHoCH FVG & CISD FVG
Most tools mark every fair value gap on the chart. ICT X marks only the ones a structural event created, and tells you which event.
A CHoCH FVG is left by the displacement that flipped structure. ICT X traces back from the CHoCH and keeps only the gap with the largest displacement candle: the one that actually caused the break, not every gap nearby.
A CISD FVG is left by the leg that broke the CISD line. It only scans the exact candles that produced the break. These are the gaps that tend to get respected weeks later, because they mark where price violently rejected a swept level.
When price closes through a gap
An inverted gap is not dead. It is the same level doing the opposite job. Price that failed to hold a gap as support will often reject from it as resistance.
FVG boxes sets how many stay on the chart. When the limit is reached the oldest is dropped. Raise it if you want untouched zones to survive; keep it low for a clean chart.
HTF levels
Previous day, week and month: high, low and midpoint. The obvious places price reaches for.
These are previous period values, one period back. When a new day begins, the daily lines move to what is now yesterday. They are drawn from the same data the HTF panel uses, so a level always matches its candle.
Alerts & setup
Twelve conditions in two jobs: tell me to look, or tell me to act.
Right-click the chart → Add alert → choose ICT X → pick a condition.
| Condition | Job | What it means |
|---|---|---|
CISD Setup Long / Short | Heads-up | A sweep is developing on a higher timeframe. Go and look, but do not act on this alone. |
PDH / PDL Touch | Heads-up | Price reached the previous day's high or low. |
PWH / PWL Touch | Heads-up | Price reached the previous week's high or low. |
PMH / PML Touch | Heads-up | Price reached the previous month's high or low. |
CISD FVG Long / Short | Trigger | Price returned to the gap left by a CISD break. |
CHoCH FVG Long / Short | Trigger | Price returned to the gap left by a structure flip. |
CISD Setup fires while the candle is still forming. That is the point of a heads-up. It can appear and then resolve. Your entry is the CISD break, or the BOS after it, and the gap alerts are what tell you price has come back for it.
Which timeframe to set the alert on
An alert locks in the timeframe and the settings you had when you created it. Changing your chart afterwards does not affect it.
Set gap alerts on a low timeframe. Structure is always calculated on the 1-hour engine, so a 5-minute alert still watches 1-hour zones. You simply get told faster when price arrives.
Settings that change behaviour
| Setting | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
Daily / Weekly / Monthly | 3 · 2 · 1 | Closed candles per group. Also controls how far back sweeps and CISD lines are kept. |
FVG boxes | 10 | How many gaps stay on the chart. Oldest drops first. Max 200. |
CHoCH FVG / CISD FVG | on · on | Which structural events are allowed to create gaps. |
Show CISD Line · Label | on · off | The trigger line, and an optional tag naming it on the chart. |
Right offset | 25 | Distance from live price to the HTF panel. |
CRT Vert Lines | off | Dotted verticals marking where each HTF candle opened. |
Unticking Monthly removes its candles and its sweeps, CISD lines and gap projections. Each timeframe is a complete unit, so the panel and the chart never disagree.