ICT Gold A+ Liquidity Sweep + Market Structure Shift + Fair Value Gap (FVG)

Shared by a BacktestingMax trader on 27 Jun 2026, updated 13 Aug 2026

Philosophy / Narrative

This strategy exploits institutional order flow.

The market first seeks liquidity above previous highs or below previous lows to trigger retail stop losses. After liquidity is collected, institutions reverse price direction.

I only trade after:

Liquidity is taken.
Market Structure Shift (MSS) occurs.
A Fair Value Gap (FVG) forms.
Price retraces into Premium/Discount.
Entry is confirmed during Kill Zones.

My goal is to trade with Smart Money, not against it.

Expected Risk Reward:
1:3 minimum
Ideal:
1:5+

Entry rules

  1. ✅ Higher Time Frame (Daily/4H) bias identified.
  2. ✅ Liquidity pool identified (Equal Highs/Lows, Previous Day High/Low, Session High/Low).
  3. ✅ Liquidity sweep completed.
  4. ✅ Market Structure Shift (MSS) confirmed.
  5. ✅ Displacement candle present.
  6. ✅ Fair Value Gap (FVG) created.
  7. ✅ Price retraces into FVG.
  8. ✅ Premium/Discount respected.
  9. ✅ Session is London or New York Kill Zone.
  10. ✅ No major news within 15 minutes.
  11. ✅ Risk ≤ 1% of account.
  12. ✅ Minimum RR = 1:3.

Invalidation

  1. ❌ No MSS after liquidity sweep.
  2. ❌ FVG not respected.
  3. ❌ HTF bias changes.
  4. ❌ Entry occurs outside Kill Zone.
  5. ❌ Price closes beyond stop-loss level.
  6. ❌ Major unexpected news releases.
  7. ❌ Risk exceeds trading plan.
  8. ❌ Emotional or revenge trading detected.

Stop loss and take profit

  1. ✅ Stop Loss below sweep low (Buy).
  2. ✅ Stop Loss above sweep high (Sell).
  3. ✅ Add spread + buffer (5–15 points).
  4. ✅ First TP at opposing liquidity.
  5. ✅ Final TP at HTF liquidity.
  6. ✅ Partial close at 1:2 RR.
  7. ✅ Move SL to Break Even after 1:1.
  8. ✅ Trail behind new swing highs/lows.

Market Bias

  1. ✅ Daily trend
  2. ✅ 4H trend
  3. ✅ 1H trend
  4. ✅ Premium/Discount

Liquidity

  1. ✅ Previous Day High
  2. ✅ Previous Day Low
  3. ✅ Asian High
  4. ✅ Asian Low
  5. ✅ Equal Highs
  6. ✅ Equal Lows

SMT Divergence

  1. ✅ Gold vs Silver
  2. ✅ Gold vs DXY

ICT Kill Zones

  1. ✅ London Open 08:00–10:00 London
  2. ✅ New York Open 08:30–11:00 New York

News Filter

  1. ✅ High-impact USD news checked.
  2. ✅ FOMC avoided.
  3. ✅ CPI avoided.
  4. ✅ NFP avoided.

Risk Management

  1. ✅ Maximum 1% risk.
  2. ✅ Maximum 2 losses per day.
  3. ✅ Stop after daily drawdown.
  4. ✅ No overtrading.

Psychology

  1. ✅ Calm mindset.
  2. ✅ No FOMO.
  3. ✅ No revenge trading.
  4. ✅ Trading only A+ setups.

Exit Rules

  1. ✅ Close 50% at 1:2 RR.
  2. ✅ Move SL to Break Even.
  3. ✅ Trail remaining position.
  4. ✅ Exit at opposing liquidity.
  5. ✅ Exit if MSS reverses.

A+ Gold Setup Scorecard

  1. HTF Bias ✅
  2. Liquidity Sweep ✅
  3. MSS ✅
  4. Displacement ✅
  5. FVG ✅
  6. Premium/Discount ✅
  7. Kill Zone ✅
  8. No News ✅
  9. RR ≥ 1:3 ✅
  10. Risk ≤ 1% ✅

Inside the app

Opening this strategy in BacktestingMax shows the full record behind the numbers above, on a free account: every trade with entry, exit, size and P&L plus CSV and Excel export; a bar-by-bar replay of the author's own session on 1-minute history; Monte Carlo projections that reshuffle the trade sequence; the equity curve against buy-and-hold; advanced statistics including Sharpe and Sortino ratios, expectancy, payoff ratio, recovery factor, maximum drawdown and longest time underwater; a day-by-day P&L calendar; and behavioural analysis covering revenge trading, position-size chasing, long/short bias and the hours and days it actually made money.

Open this strategy in BacktestingMax (free account required)

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Figures come from backtests run by the author inside BacktestingMax. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and nothing here is financial advice.