The Monday Range in an ICT Forex Trading Week

A Tuesday chart can make Monday look prophetic. The week’s first high lines up with an old liquidity pool, Tuesday sweeps it, and the rest of the week trades lower. Cover Tuesday for a moment. Which information could the trader in Accra actually have marked before that sweep?

Monday supplies two prices that can stay on a chart all week. Their value depends on when the day finished, what traded between its close and your arrival, and whether there is still room for an order after the first visit. A session can produce a fine weekly narrative and no Tuesday entry.

Which day supplies the Monday range?

A fixed pair of levels gives the weekly profile a measurable starting point. At Tuesday’s London open the range has finished developing. A trader can record which side is intact, which was crossed overnight and whether the current quote is inside. Revisiting the same sheet on Thursday reveals how that state changed without asking memory to reconstruct it.

The Inner Circle Trader on monthly and weekly ranges

Why the distinction matters for order flow

On a short Monday caused by a holiday, keep the observed width and tag the calendar condition. Renaming Tuesday as Monday gives a perfectly measurable range, but a different experiment. A useful comparison has a Monday-only row and a first-full-session row with their own activation times. The latter cannot qualify for an early Tuesday fill.

How to identify it on a chart

Start with the broker’s trading-day template. For a New York close feed, identify the session assigned to Monday, including the Sunday evening quotes belonging to it. If the vendor prints a separate short Sunday bar, freeze a merge or exclusion policy before drawing either line. Preserve the two source timestamps as well as both prices.

Suppose Monday runs from 1.07946 to 1.08583, a width of 63.7 pips. Tuesday’s early high of 1.08579 leaves four fractional points to the upper edge. A later bid of 1.08591 trades through that edge by 0.8 pip. Counting both as a sweep erases the difference between an approach and a penetration. A printed chart scaled to a whole week can make them look identical.

Rebuild the first visit from a Tuesday tape

The recorded Monday high is 1.08763 and the low is 1.08142. Keep both lines fixed for Tuesday. Use bid observations, label an exact touch separately and require at least one fractional point of penetration to call a sweep. Distance above the high equals Tuesday’s bid minus 1.08763.

An opening inside. The new session opens inside the marked range in this snapshot. Consult the overnight tape before describing the high as untouched. An inside opening and an untouched boundary answer different questions.

First approach. The approach meets a one-pip proximity alert, so a trader could start watching. It provides no printed price through the outer boundary. A preemptive sell here has a different trigger from a post-sweep order.

Boundary touch. An equality rule calls this a touch. A strict break rule keeps waiting. This row is the right place to settle the worksheet convention, before the next quote makes the distinction feel unimportant.

First cross. The inside-to-outside event is now observed. Store its time once. Later candles can establish a return and displacement, but nothing here establishes their future close or offers an already-confirmed entry.

Second visit. This is a fresh approach to the same historical line and a later visit in the weekly ledger. Counting it as another first visit gives frequently tested levels more weight than quiet ones.

If Monday ended with a sparse final interval, where would an unobserved high matter most?

Compare the 0.3-pip near miss and the 0.8-pip penetration against the possible correction. The classification of a marginal event is more sensitive than a move many pips away. Retrieve the missing prints before choosing the week’s high.

How to trade the setup in a paper session

Before Tuesday’s entry window, write a two-branch instruction. If the first external visit returns inside and displacement clears an opposing swing, look for a returning fair value gap. If price closes outside and stays there under your acceptance rule, retire the reversal instruction. Fix the time at which an untouched order expires.

The charts use constructed five-minute bid candles. The two monday’s range exercises below share a bracket order as a comparison point. Each shows when an ICT displacement clears a local swing, when a fair value gap becomes measurable and which later quote can fill it. All sample spreads, costs, outcomes and sizes belong to the hypothetical exercise.

When Monday is the shortest session of the week

Mark a Monday range on a week with ordinary dealing hours and the rule seems almost automatic. The interesting case is a short Monday followed by a busy Tuesday. The short day’s small box may be crossed early on both sides. Those crosses are accurate observations of that box. They answer a different question from how price behaves around the first full session of a normal week.

Give the short session its true calendar identifier. If the strategy watches Tuesday morning, its inputs can include the completed short Monday and the holiday schedule known in advance. If you substitute Tuesday as the first full session, its final edges become available only after Tuesday closes. A backtest that trades Tuesday’s final low on Tuesday morning has borrowed information from later in the day.

Build the comparison on two sheets. On one, freeze every Monday under the same rule and record the first Tuesday boundary event. On the other, wait for the first full session and begin observations at the following session. The outcomes occur on different days in some weeks, so preserve a single week identifier and both entry opportunity times. An empty Tuesday entry field is the correct result when the second policy has yet to form its input.

Pay particular attention to weeks that gap beyond Monday’s edge. A first quote outside is distinct from a continuous path through the boundary. If the plan requires a sweep with a return inside, the subsequent return may still provide evidence. The apparent crossing in the empty part of the graph cannot give a broker fill. Store the first available quote and the last quote on the other side to make that distinction reviewable.

EUR/USD worked example

The first Tuesday visit to Monday

At Monday’s close the chosen feed recorded its low at 1.08052. The other end of its range is 1.08469. On Tuesday an overnight audit ends at 1.08063 on the approach side of the edge, leaving 1.1 pips before the first penetration. The two old Monday prints are already known when the first bid candle below is revealed.

The first Tuesday probe reaches 1.08026, which takes the Monday low by 2.6 pips. The nearest local pivot in the opposite direction is 1.08153. Under the return model the trader needs that local move after the weekly boundary event. A standalone alarm at 1.08052 can prompt observation but cannot reproduce the order eventually shown at 1.08109.

Read the entry from left to right

Begin with the marked sell-side reference at 1.08052. The five-minute candle beginning 07:25 extends to 1.08026. At its close there is evidence of a visit and a new local low. The price that will become the upper edge of the execution gap is still in the future. A reader practising this live can put an alert on the opposing pivot at 1.08153 and leave the order ticket empty until the remaining conditions arrive.

At the close of the 07:35 candle the bid stands at 1.08174. Compare that with the earlier pivot. A completed shift now supports an upward delivery hypothesis, but the proposed three-candle imbalance still requires its third candle. The first candle’s high is 1.08095. The third candle’s eventual low is 1.08123. Their separation is 2.8 pips and their midpoint is 1.08109. The earliest next-bar activation on this tape is 07:45.

The order buys on the ask and the chart shows bids. With spread fixed at 0.7 pip, an ask of 1.08109 corresponds to bid 1.08102. The returning bid reaches 1.08082 and its matching ask reaches 1.08089. The workbook assumes continuous movement between displayed quote observations, sufficient available size and an execution at the requested limit. The same logic applied to a real broker order would still need the deal record to establish an actual fill.

Translate the chart into a position size

For a worked cash conversion, suppose the USD paper account assigns this candidate a maximum planned loss of $8.35. A standard lot of 100,000 base units on this USD-quoted pair changes by $10 for a one-pip move. One standard lot at the 9.6-pip stop distance plus 0.7 pip of estimated round-trip fees and other friction therefore exposes $103.00 at the modelled stop fill. The bid/ask condition already accounts for the stated spread.

Dividing the cash cap by that one-lot loss gives 0.0811 lots before volume rounding. With a permitted increment of one hundredth, rounding down gives 0.08 lot and $8.24 of planned downside. Check the conversion in reverse by multiplying size by loss per lot. A smaller order can make a wide structural stop affordable. It cannot supply missing room between entry and the intended liquidity destination, and a stop filled through its requested price can still exceed the estimate.

Reclassify one changed condition

Change the overnight record to 1.08039. Tuesday’s plotted wick remains identical, yet an earlier visit now precedes it. A first-visit instruction expires, while a retest instruction may survive. Keep both candidate labels and compare the later outcomes only within the rule actually active on the desk.

GBP/USD worked example

The first Tuesday visit to Monday

At Monday’s close the chosen feed recorded its high at 1.25968. The other end of its range is 1.25504. On Tuesday an overnight audit ends at 1.25956 on the approach side of the edge, leaving 1.2 pips before the first penetration. The two old Monday prints are already known when the first bid candle below is revealed.

The first Tuesday probe reaches 1.25998, which takes the Monday high by 3.0 pips. The nearest local pivot in the opposite direction is 1.25856. Under the return model the trader needs that local move after the weekly boundary event. A standalone alarm at 1.25968 can prompt observation but cannot reproduce the order eventually shown at 1.25905.

Audit the sell order from the dealing side

The first local buy-side reference at 1.25968 has a different job from the swing whose closing break confirms the bearish move. Compare the observed high of 1.25998 with that first price, then inspect the later close at 1.25832 relative to the pivot at 1.25856. One comparison describes location and the other supplies direction. Combining them into a single retrospective arrow would hide the point at which the trader actually gained the new information.

A bearish fair value gap forms when the later high remains below the earlier low in the three-candle sequence. Here the low of the candle starting 07:25 is 1.25920. The high of the candle starting 07:35 is 1.25890. The middle of their 3.0-pip interval is 1.25905. The sell limit becomes available once the second boundary is known. On the returning candle the maximum bid is 1.25935, high enough for the paper limit under the stated fill convention.

A sell opens on the bid, but the position ends by buying on the ask. For an ask stop at 1.26012 the bid needs to reach only 1.26003 with the assumed 0.9-pip spread. An ask target at 1.25663 requires a bid at or below 1.25654. Marking the two bid equivalents before scoring the last candle prevents a visually attractive wick from becoming a profit that the executable side never offered.

Reconcile the terminal candle

The first deciding bar opens at 08:00 GMT. Its bid ranges from 1.25919 to 1.26048. Adding the model spread gives an ask range from 1.25928 to 1.26057. Follow the tape from the fill and stop at the first executable exit. Here the original bracket reaches its protective stop before the other terminal price. The closing body can finish away from that exit without changing the realised trade.

As a sensitivity check, leave the chosen fill sequence intact and increase extra round-trip costs by 0.5 pip. Possible net reward becomes 23.3 pips and possible downside becomes 11.6 pips, giving risk:reward of 1:2.01. This calculation isolates a change in charges. A different spread can alter whether the original sell or its buy-to-close orders were ever executable, which calls for a new quote-by-quote replay.

Reclassify one changed condition

Change the overnight record to 1.25983. Tuesday’s plotted wick remains identical, yet an earlier visit now precedes it. A first-visit instruction expires, while a retest instruction may survive. Keep both candidate labels and compare the later outcomes only within the rule actually active on the desk.

Decide what qualifies as the first Monday-edge return

Take five independent practice records and apply two predeclared policies. A accepts the first penetration since the Monday range closed. B accepts the first penetration since Tuesday’s London window opened. In this exercise “yes” means the named condition occurs within the stated opportunity. A row can satisfy both conditions, satisfy one, fail both, or leave a condition unresolved. Score the evidence supplied before imagining how the rest of the chart might behave.

Work through the disagreements

Quiet handoff followed by one London cross. Both observation clocks see the same first event because nothing happened between their starting times.

An overnight cross followed by a London revisit. The weekly ledger already records a visit. Restarting the visit count for the local window creates a legitimate but differently named session signal.

First cross occurs in Asia; no later London visit. A records a weekly-boundary event outside the London window. Whether a particular trader can execute then is a further constraint.

No penetration before the observation deadline. Two intact lines can produce a useful weekly map while offering no first-penetration observation at all.

Missing quotes before an observed London cross. The London sequence is complete. Earlier missing data prevent certification that the same cross was the first since Monday’s close.

In these constructed observations, A gives 2 confirmed yes, 2 confirmed no and 1 unresolved. B gives 3 confirmed yes, 2 confirmed no and 0 unresolved. Among the 4 rows settled for both rules, they agree on 2 classifications. Agreement here concerns qualification under the stated definitions. No return series has been supplied for these five records, so the counts cannot estimate the profitability of either policy.

Resolve the missing evidence

Obtain the full series between the Monday cutoff and the London opening, including the boundary quote. Until that information is available, the possible number of positive A classifications is 2 to 3 out of five. For B the corresponding count is 3. Preserving bounds stops an unresolved record from entering the journal as a known failure merely because obtaining the source data was inconvenient.

Applying the worksheet on a new session

Build the session from the clock that owns it

Start the research log with a date in Accra and the source city’s date for the same instant. A local evening can belong to a new trading day on the broker’s template. A weekly or monthly divider can appear at a different hour from New York midnight. Store both the server timestamp and the UTC conversion for the first included and first excluded observations. This makes the original measurement reproducible on another display.

Ghana uses GMT throughout the year. With an ICT London Kill Zone defined as 02:00 to 05:00 New York, the corresponding Ghana interval is 07:00 to 10:00 in US standard time and 06:00 to 09:00 in US daylight time. A 07:00 to 10:00 New York Kill Zone becomes noon to 15:00 GMT in winter and 11:00 to 14:00 in summer. New York midnight appears at 05:00 GMT or 04:00 GMT respectively. A London-local event follows the UK clock instead.

Choose a single interpretation for bar stamps. A five-minute bar labelled 08:25 by its opening time represents the interval up to 08:30. A rule requiring that bar’s closing price can use it only as the interval ends. If the next order is assumed active immediately, record that assumption explicitly. In a real account, the platform’s acknowledged order time and actual dealing quote determine whether the apparent return was available.

Keep a ledger of visits through the handoff

Once a reference qualifies, begin a simple event ledger at its activation time. Record the first approach, exact touch, first penetration and first completed close outside as separate events when the research question depends on them. Some will occur on the same bar and others on different days. A chart loaded only at the start of your own working session can lose the overnight portion of that ledger.

When a later event updates the status, keep the original price and add the new timestamp. Redrawing the old line to a nearby swing can turn a second visit into the apparent first touch of a different object. If you do want to study the newer swing, give it a new identifier and a formation time. The ledger then contains both the old reference’s history and the newer reference’s own possible first visit.

Use a final state for unresolved paths. If a missing candle could contain the first penetration, the next visible penetration is the first observed after coverage resumes. That description preserves what you know. A study specifically requiring the first actual visit since formation needs the missing interval or an uncertainty flag. Include the number of affected sessions beside any comparison of visit frequencies so readers can see how much history was available.

Define the observation that earns a row

A session, a liquidity event, an order and a fill are different units of observation. One session can contain several related attempts. A single liquidity event can generate two mutually exclusive order policies. An eligible order can remain unfilled. Give each level its own identifier so that summaries by trading day and by ticket can be reconciled back to the original opportunity.

Start the sample with a calendar or frozen set of opportunities chosen before the outcomes are known. Preserve quiet sessions, incomplete source records and correctly cancelled orders. A missing quote is a data-quality observation. A known absence of a qualifying setup is a valid zero-opportunity session. Those categories affect the interpretation of a result even when neither produced a deal.

When comparing policies, begin with the same original opportunities and simulate each under its own rules. A conditional mean among fills describes the quality of the trades that occurred. A mean per opportunity also captures differences in participation. A cash result per watched session can matter to a trader with limited screen time. Use the denominator that matches the practical question and report the number of original observations beside it.

A blind handoff on Tuesday morning

Give another trader Monday’s completed range and the first fifteen minutes of your Tuesday window. Keep the overnight tape hidden for the first pass. Ask them to identify what they can actually establish. They can locate price relative to the box and classify the visible excursion. They cannot certify the first visit of the week from that fragment alone.

Reveal the intervening history and ask for a revised plan. If the earlier visit removes a trade, write which required condition failed and the exact time at which it failed. If the plan survives, verify that its order had enough time to reach the stated fill before expiry. Repeat this exercise on a week with a first opening quote outside the box. The reader should change the path description even if the same two horizontal prices remain on the chart.

Frequently asked questions

Continue the chart exercise with the school’s guides to the London Kill Zone and the Judas Swing for session context. Use market structure shifts to locate the confirmation, fair value gaps to mark the return interval, and order blocks to relate the smaller trade to its larger price area.