The Weekly Opening Price in ICT Forex Analysis

On Monday morning EUR/USD is below the weekly open. By lunch it has crossed that same price four times. A trader who changes bias at every crossing has taken four opinions from one number without learning much about the week.

A weekly opening price earns its place on an ICT chart when it lets you describe the path into a setup. Selling above it and buying below it are not complete trading plans. This lesson uses the first quote of a defined trading week to separate the opening reference from the evidence needed to place an order.

Definition and chart context: weekly opening price

Build a strip of five-minute closes around an opening bid of 1.09426. Use 1.09441, 1.09412, 1.09435, 1.09418 and 1.09464. Classifying the fifth close alone gives a neat bullish label. Reading the strip shows repeated changes of side before price created any separation. An opening print gives location, while this sequence tells you whether that location has recently separated buyers and sellers in the model.

For the ICT background, see Intraday Profiles. The worksheets below use stated study rules for measurement, confirmation and simulated fills. Those choices let you reproduce the examples; they are not claims that a public candle identifies the owner, size or intent of an institutional order.

Why this distinction matters

Distance from the weekly open describes what buyers and sellers have achieved since the week began. It does not tell you whether an existing overshoot will extend. In the ICT framework a possible accumulation or distribution story still needs a destination and a response at an identified array. Two mornings can both begin eight pips above the open but have entirely different histories: a first clean departure in one, a night of repeated crossings in the other.

How to identify it before the next candle

Open the weekly candle’s data panel, record the opening value and locate its timestamp intraday. On a bid chart the first bid can differ materially from the first ask, especially at reopening. Save the first observed spread if available. Freeze the line for the week. Do not silently replace it with Monday midnight, Monday London open, or the centre of a weekend gap.

One practical experiment is to freeze two labels before London: side of the open, and number of changes of side since the week began. A close exactly at the open can preserve the prior nonzero sign for this exercise. The first close on one side establishes a sign; it is not a crossing. Keep weekend gap size in another field. Otherwise a wide opening gap can dominate a comparison intended to measure intraday reclaims.

When does a weekly open stop offering a useful distinction?

A hypothetical Friday closing bid is 1.09437 and the first weekly bid is 1.09391. The gap is 4.6 pips, but the opening line is exactly 1.09391. Its distance from Monday’s later bid of 1.09523 is 13.2 pips. The gap midpoint would be 1.09414. Now hide the labels. A pullback to 1.09414 has reached a gap reference without touching the weekly open. A journal claiming an open retest there combines two distinct experiments. Record the difference of 2.3 pips and assess it against the original entry tolerance, not the eventual direction of price.

Repeat the classification once on Friday with Monday’s notes hidden. If Monday’s opening quote has disappeared because the platform rolled the contract or reloaded history, record the feed difference. A visually perfect end-of-week rejection on a revised chart is poor evidence about what could have been decided at the start of the week.

How to trade the idea in a paper replay

Classify the approach before using the open. For this exercise a reclaim requires a move through the open, a completed return to the original side, and displacement away from the area. An opening level crossed repeatedly without separation becomes a reference for balance rather than an entry invitation. When the market has moved far from the open, ask whether a return is a feasible target before calling the distance an imbalance that must be filled.

The two replays use constructed five-minute candles and a controlled order model shared across this workbook series. Keeping the execution pattern comparable lets you isolate what the featured concept changes: the reference, the eligibility decision, or the management rule. These selected paths illustrate mechanics. They are not historical signals or a sample from which to estimate a winning percentage.

A session clock you can reconstruct in Accra

Start by writing the clock in the margin. Accra uses GMT throughout the year. A session definition expressed in New York time moves by one hour on a Ghana clock when New York enters or leaves daylight saving time. A session expressed in London local time follows London instead. European and US changes need not occur on the same weekend. A saved template labelled London is not evidence of which clock its author used.

For a concrete conversion, take a New York clock reading of 02:00. In US standard time Accra reads 07:00; in US daylight time it reads 06:00. Thus a 02:00 to 05:00 New York London Kill Zone appears as 07:00 to 10:00 GMT in winter or 06:00 to 09:00 in summer. The 07:00 to 10:00 New York window becomes noon to 15:00 GMT in winter and 11:00 to 14:00 in summer. A school worksheet that deliberately uses fixed GMT hours is a different convention. Label it as such.

The same conversion places New York midnight at 05:00 GMT in winter or 04:00 GMT in summer. That is not the start of every broker day. A vendor using a New York close day can start a new trading day in the Ghana evening, hours before the New York midnight reference. One vertical line cannot quietly serve as both boundaries. If your session crosses midnight locally, write the full date on both ends rather than treating the interval as a negative number of hours.

Before replay, find one known UTC timestamp on the feed. Compare it with the platform clock and the intended market clock, then check another date in the opposite season. Record the opening timestamp of the first included bar and the first excluded bar. This makes a session marking portable: a trader opening the same feed in Kumasi and another using a different display timezone should select the same physical quotes. For the paired illustrations in this lesson, timestamps use a standard-time practice clock.

Check seasonal offsets against the Ghana clock record and the New York clock record for the year being tested. Keep historical observations on their original date.

When a weekend gap competes with the open

Put the Friday close and the Monday opening quote on separate horizontal lines. Shade the interval between them but leave the new weekly open labelled at one edge. If price starts inside that interval after the opening print, a move toward Friday’s close is a gap-fill hypothesis. A return to the weekly starting quote is an open-retest hypothesis. Both lines might be nearby, and only one may be touched.

The distinction matters when comparing two brokers. One broker begins quoting earlier at a wide spread; another opens after the first burst of pricing has passed. Pick the quote side and a feed before looking for a preferred opening level. If your protocol discards an opening quote above a predefined spread ceiling, label the result first qualifying quote, because it is no longer literally the first weekly print.

For a useful comparison, store the original opening bid and the first bid seen under normal conditions. Measure their separation, then see whether that difference changes the side classification at the decision time. A discrepancy of a few tenths of a pip may not change a location far from the open, but it can reverse a claimed reclaim that depended on a marginal wick. Report the effect on decisions as well as the raw price difference.

Do not turn the opening price into a weekly directional forecast by definition. A week that ends above the open is bullish by a simple candle convention; that end-of-week description was unknown on Monday. The lesson asks what the opening reference contributed at a particular decision time, not whether Friday eventually supplied a convenient label.

Worked replay A: The week opens at 1.08602

Use the first executable weekly bid, 1.08602, as the fixed open. Suppose the weekend’s last bid was 1.08550. The difference of 5.2 pips belongs to the weekend opening gap. It is not the distance from the current order to the open. The opening quote will not change when the first daily candle finishes.

The probe at 1.08574 takes price across the weekly open and its close at 1.08611 restores the starting side. The push through 1.08697 later supplies separation. A side-of-open model could react on the first cross; this reclaim model deliberately waits for the return and break. Keep the two timestamps on different lines of the record.

Reconstruct the decision before reading the outcome

Cover the candles to the right of 07:25. On this EUR/USD bid chart the test candle opens at 1.08640, trades down to 1.08574 and ends at 1.08611. The close tells you that bids recovered part of the excursion. It does not yet tell you that anyone bought a particular number of lots, or that the prior short-term high will give way. Mark the low as an observation and leave the order field blank.

Now reveal the candle beginning 07:35. Its close at 1.08724 is above the earlier pivot at 1.08697. This is the completed break used by the exercise. Look two candles apart: the high of the bar beginning 07:30 is 1.08646 and the low of the bar beginning 07:40 is 1.08678. Their separation forms the bullish fair value gap in this model. One strong green candle alone would not establish those two outside prices.

A resting buy at their midpoint, 1.08662, can first be submitted at 07:45 under a next-bar convention. The 07:40 candle is named for its opening time, so its low cannot supply a fill for an order that depends on its close. This matters whenever the same screenshot appears to show both confirmation and a cheap entry. Write the order time before revealing the next low, not after finding a favourable one.

Assume a constant 0.8-pip spread throughout this small slice. On the return, bid reaches 1.08636 and the corresponding ask reaches 1.08644. The latter is at or below the requested buy price. We book 1.08662 as the fill, with no price improvement, no delay after activation and enough available size. Those are transparent simulation assumptions. A real candle, even from the correct side of the spread, is not a broker’s confirmation.

What the order would risk in cash

Give the practice account a USD balance of 1280. Its hypothetical cap of one half of one percent is $6.40 for this decision. For a USD-quoted pair with a 100,000-unit standard contract, one pip at one standard lot is $10. Adding 0.6 pip for assumed round-trip commission and other execution friction gives $104.00 of modelled downside at one lot. The spread is already present in the entry and exit quote rules and is not charged a second time.

Divide $6.40 by $104.00 and round down to the next permitted hundredth of a lot. That leaves 0.06 lots, risking about $6.24 under these assumptions. A gap or worse stop fill can exceed that number. Position sizing changes the money exposed; it cannot turn a missing confirmation into a valid entry. When the minimum tradable size exceeds the cap, the worksheet records a pass.

Change just one fact

Give the tape four previous alternating closes around 1.08602. The directional meaning of a fresh reclaim would be different from a return to a price the market has repeatedly crossed. Test a maximum prior-cross count rather than declaring that every cross is accumulation or distribution. The close sequence is observable; the motives behind it are not.

Worked replay B: The week opens at 1.26503

Use the first executable weekly bid, 1.26503, as the fixed open. Suppose the weekend’s last bid was 1.26565. The difference of 6.2 pips belongs to the weekend opening gap. It is not the distance from the current order to the open. The opening quote will not change when the first daily candle finishes.

The probe at 1.26527 takes price across the weekly open and its close at 1.26493 restores the starting side. The push through 1.26387 later supplies separation. A side-of-open model could react on the first cross; this reclaim model deliberately waits for the return and break. Keep the two timestamps on different lines of the record.

Audit the short from the exit side of the quote

Read the second tape independently. The 07:15 bid high is 1.26527. By the end of the bar starting 07:25, bid has closed at 1.26358, below the pre-existing pivot at 1.26387. The workbook calls that downward displacement. It does not require a guess about which institution initiated the move. The mark is useful because a different reviewer can identify the same closing price on the same feed.

The low of the 07:20 candle is 1.26445 and the high of the 07:30 candle is 1.26419. The later high remains below the earlier low, leaving a bearish execution gap between them. Halving this interval gives 1.26432. A sell limit resting there becomes eligible only after 07:30 has finished. When bid subsequently reaches 1.26464 the paper order can fill at its stated price. No favourable slippage is credited.

It is tempting to score this short from the lowest red wick, because that is what the bid chart displays. The position actually has to buy back. With an assumed spread of 0.9 pip, an ask target at 1.26193 requires a bid at or below 1.26184. An ask stop at 1.26549 needs only a bid at or above 1.26540. Marking these two conversions before scoring prevents a one-spread error on both exits.

Keep the original order record even when the outcome is obvious from the last candle. A reviewer needs the decision price, the reference quote and the activation time, not just a screenshot captioned “short”. If the platform would have rejected a resting order this close to market, or the feed lacks quotes in the return interval, the correct response is to change the fill status. It is not to claim a market execution at the old limit price.

Score the path, then challenge the assumption

The deciding candle opens at 07:50. Its bid range is 1.26459 to 1.26558. With the assumed spread, the ask range is 1.26468 to 1.26567. The upper stop is reached before the other exit without requiring a guess about two exits inside this bar. A later movement cannot reverse a booked exit. In particular, a later visit to the original target would not repair a prior stop.

Increase the estimated round-trip friction by another half pip as a sensitivity check, while leaving entry, stop and target fills fixed. Planned risk:reward becomes 1:1.83, obtained by dividing 23.0 pips of possible net reward by 12.6 pips of downside. This answers a cost question only. If widening the actual bid/ask spread changes whether an order is triggered, reconstruct the path instead of merely reducing the result by a fee.

Change just one fact

Give the tape four previous alternating closes around 1.26503. The directional meaning of a fresh reclaim would be different from a return to a price the market has repeatedly crossed. Test a maximum prior-cross count rather than declaring that every cross is accumulation or distribution. The close sequence is observable; the motives behind it are not.

What can go wrong in the review?

A weekly line drawn on a continuous futures series may move when the data provider adjusts prices across contract rolls. A spot broker’s weekly open will also differ from a currency future. Do not copy a numerical line between instruments simply because both quote a euro price in dollars.

Reader exercise: Is this an isolated weekly reclaim?

Try the following classification without using profit or loss as a clue. Measure the previous changes of side at completed closes. For this worksheet, the value must be at most 1 crossings. Also require this separate fact: the weekly open comes from the designated executable feed. These are conditions for admitting a row to a study. They do not replace the order trigger, size calculation or exit plan. The six records are constructed cases, not a report of observed market frequencies.

Cover the answer column and decide which facts you would request before admitting each record. A passes the numerical test at 0 crossings and has the other required evidence. B has the other evidence but measures 2 crossings. Under the stated rule that is enough to exclude B. A clean-looking reaction after B cannot change the comparison previous changes of side at completed closes ≤ 1. If you want to study a wider definition, write it as a new version and rerun every observation.

C is the deliberate boundary case. Its value of 1 crossings equals the threshold. This worksheet uses an inclusive comparison, so C passes. A version that demands strictly less would exclude it. Keep exact prices or timestamps in the original record before rounding for display; values that look equal on a chart may still differ at the feed’s actual precision. The most efficient place to look for a disagreement between two reviewers is often an equality case like this.

D has a larger value than allowed, so it fails even though the separate prerequisite is unknown. E demonstrates the opposite error: the measured 1 crossings is acceptable, but the prerequisite is known to be false. F lacks the numerical evidence and its remaining condition is satisfied. There is no basis to call it either a clean pass or a measured failure. Keeping “unresolved” distinct from “no” preserves what data collection could still settle.

Choosing the first low-spread quote on one date and the raw opening quote on another changes the reference before any crossing is counted.

Recover the day that produced the number

Go back to the full session tape for the disputed observation. Load enough history to include the session that supplied the reference and the interval between that session and the proposed decision. A screenshot starting at entry can never establish an unvisited level on its own. If your vendor has no bars for part of the interval, preserve the gap in the record. Substituting another feed may be useful as a comparison, but it changes the provenance of the observation.

For this lesson the minimum useful packet is the first weekly bid plus the signed series of closes relative to that bid. Preserve the original precision and include the clock used. If another reader can reproduce the number but not the label, examine the equality rule and prerequisite. If they cannot reproduce the number, settle the input discrepancy first. These are different faults, and only the second can be repaired by retrieving better data.

Use the six rows to test the data process before drawing any market conclusion. Two rows pass, three have a known failure and one is unresolved. Of the five settled records, two pass; among all six the possible pass count is two or three depending on the missing measurement. Neither fraction measures how often a London trade wins. The labels reflect a deliberately chosen exercise, and no trade outcomes were supplied.

A test you can run on unseen sessions

Separate clean departures, first returns and sessions with three or more completed crossings. Does knowing the crossing history improve the decision compared with using only above or below?

Make one dated record for each session you inspect, including those in which the required condition never appears. Keep a count of eligible signals, orders placed, orders filled and positions closed. A result per fill answers a different question from a result per session. Separate them before comparing this rule with another way of reading weekly opening price.

Frequently asked questions

To put this worksheet beside a live chart, use the guides to London Kill Zone timing and the Judas Swing to define the session question. Then compare market structure shifts for confirmation, fair value gaps for the return price, and order blocks for the larger area behind the move.