Summary
Highlights
The speaker introduces a method to integrate ICT concepts with Volume Profile to create a mechanical, clear-cut trading process. He shares his personal journey from struggling to achieving multi-million dollar success using this exact system and offers this free course, emphasizing its value over many paid alternatives. He backs his claims by showing real broker statements, highlighting a 50% win rate and significant profits, while cautioning that results are not typical and trading is risky. The core problem with traditional ICT is its lack of a mechanical process, leading to overthinking and psychological issues. The Volume Profile provides this missing structure, allowing traders to mechanically identify premium/discount zones, avoid choppy markets, determine daily bias, filter order blocks, and understand liquidity sweeps and fair value gaps.
The Volume Profile measures volume by price, unlike traditional volume that measures by time. This is crucial for tracking smart money by showing exact trading levels. Key levels in the Volume Profile include the Value Area (where 70% of trading occurred, indicating fair value), the Point of Control (the price with the most volume), and Nodes (high or low volume areas). The market constantly moves between balance (consolidation) and imbalance (expansion/displacement). Low volume nodes often correspond to fair value gaps, indicating areas of rapid price movement, while high volume nodes signify consolidation. Understanding this dynamic helps identify market direction and anticipate big moves. The Point of Control acts as a key support/resistance level, with price above it suggesting buyer control and below it, seller control. Traders can use these concepts to identify reversals or continuations and avoid emotional trading.
The speaker recommends Deep Charts for its real volume data, contrasting it with TradingView's proxy volume data. He shares his Deep Charts workspace for users. He explains how to mark the Regular Trading Hours (RTH) profile (9:30 AM to 4:00 PM EST), highlighting its importance due to higher institutional volume during this period. Other marking methods include weekly profiles for broader perspective and fixed range profiles for specific swing points or important time ranges like the opening range (first 15 minutes of trading). The opening range provides crucial insights into market control due to its high volume. He also introduces the delta profile in Deep Charts, showing aggressive buying/selling and how large orders can be absorbed, leading to market moves. Lastly, the composite profile is used to identify high and low volume areas (peaks and valleys) over extended periods, which can act as high-probability reversal zones.
Daily bias is often the most challenging ICT concept, as an incorrect bias leads to failed setups. The speaker outlines a three-step mechanical process to determine daily bias: 1) Mark the New York session profile, 2) Analyze how yesterday closed relative to its Value Area High (VAH) and Value Area Low (VAL), and 3) Analyze how today opened relative to yesterday's value area. If price closes above the VAH, it suggests a bullish bias for the next day. If it opens significantly below yesterday's value area, it indicates a bearish bias. This method, termed 'value rotation,' provides a mechanical way to understand market valuation independent of complex market structure analysis. The speaker discusses how to handle conflicting daily and weekly biases, prioritizing the weekly profile for overarching direction. He also touches upon the impact of high-impact news events like FOMC and NFP, suggesting waiting for the day after to assess market response accurately.
Order blocks, a core ICT concept, represent fake-out candles before a significant market move. The speaker emphasizes leveraging the Volume Profile to validate order blocks. A true order block, being an institutional maneuver, will be accompanied by a high volume node (HVN) in the Volume Profile, indicating smart money's footprint. Order blocks without an HVN are likely to fail. Combining order blocks with the Point of Control (POC) further strengthens their validity, as the POC represents the area of highest volume. This filtering process removes ambiguous order blocks, streamlining trade decisions and enhancing accuracy. An example demonstrates how a bullish order block with an HVN and confluence with the Value Area Low led to a successful long trade, while an order block without sufficient volume failed.
Many ICT traders struggle with liquidity sweeps because they attempt to trade every single one, often leading to losses when the market continues instead of reversing. The SPC (Sweep, Profile, Confirmation) method provides a mechanical checklist to filter for the best liquidity sweeps. It incorporates Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD) to gauge aggressive buying or selling. CVD shows who is aggressive (market orders), which often correlates with retail traders. A divergence between price action and CVD (e.g., lower low in CVD but higher low in price) indicates absorption, where smart money is passively buying/selling into aggressive retail orders, signaling a high-probability reversal. Conversely, if price and CVD move in agreement, it suggests continuation rather than reversal. This allows traders to identify genuine reversals and capitalize on breakout trades, turning previously confusing scenarios into actionable opportunities. The speaker emphasizes using this in conjunction with key levels like previous day's value areas or significant structural swing points.
Fair Value Gaps (FVGs) are popular ICT concepts but can be overwhelming due to their abundance on charts. The speaker reveals that FVGs are essentially Low Volume Nodes (LVNs) in the Volume Profile. The 'Vacuum Method' uses the fixed range Volume Profile tool to identify FVGs that correspond to true LVNs. These specific FVGs represent genuine market imbalances and act as 'vacuums' that price is highly likely to trade into. By analyzing the volume within a price leg, traders can distinguish between powerful FVGs (those with significantly low volume) and weaker ones. The composite profile can further aid in identifying low volume areas for more precise FVG selection. This data-driven approach removes ambiguity and allows traders to find more reliable fair value gaps for confident trading decisions.
The SPC strategy is a versatile framework for scalping, day trading, or swing trading any market with volume, typically on a 5-minute chart. Step 1: Sweep (S) - Identify a key level for a potential sweep. This can be previous day's volume profile levels (PC, VAH, VAL, nodes), previous day's high/low, previous session's high/low (Asia, London), current day's/week's value areas, or ICT/volume profile levels. The strategy emphasizes that only one key level is sufficient, though multiple levels provide stronger confluence. Step 2: Profile (P) - Look for a tag into a low volume node, either from previous days, the current week, or custom/composite ranges. This can lead to either a reversal or a continuation, depending on market aggression. Step 3: Confirmation (C) - Seek a candle close beyond or back into the level on the entry timeframe (e.g., 5-minute). An additional bonus is CVD agreement, indicating absorption or true trend. Stop loss is typically placed two ticks beyond the chosen level. Trade management involves 'price waiting,' where stops are trailed under recent structure to maximize winners. The speaker provides two recent trade examples showcasing the SPC strategy: one based on weekly and daily bias converging with previous week's value area high and London session low, and another leveraging the opening range volume profile for a very precise entry and management at all-time highs.