Sqa's Introductory Guide to ICT's Works & Methods v2

FTMO Trader Scouting

sqa

Village Scribe
Welcome! This is SQA's guide to Michael J. Huddleston's mentoring & teaching work. Commonly just known as "ICT" or "The Inner Circle Trader".

The point of this guide is straight forward: ICT has produced at least 200 hours of video & commentary on market education & insight. As a result, there is both a separate Vocabulary that arises, along with confusion on "Well, where do I start?".

At this time, ICT's website has been repaired and he has shared a large deal of his current library, aside from videos posted to YouTube. As such, I've changed the links to ICT's own website, but I'll leave links to the videos on YouTube, just not embedded.

But one basic understanding of ICT's video library first: ICT started teaching on another forum (BabyPips) in 2011. At the beginning, ICT's work was structured more loosely and dealing in more of the "classic technical" analysis field. This tends to overwhelm all but the most dedicated of listeners, as ICT has a trading tool bag to fill a small warehouse.

However, as he's whittle away the people that just want him to "do the work for them" (something ICT loathes), he's released most of his major tool bag, which covers 20 years of professional trading and deep insights from actual institutional traders. These types of insights are not something you normally find, mostly as the people they teach the Central Bank & Major Bank side information to are better vetted. ICT is a committed non-conformist and, now, Christian. He'll also drop mind-blowing insights as complete "rabbit trail" discussions in the middle of a video or live session.

As ICT approaches the last series he's producing to teach, expect this guide to change a bit by next year. There might be a "better" order to proceed through in the future, and this is my own personal "take" on the Order. This is still an incomplete list, as quite a lot of the advanced material is really only available off my Hard Drive and ICT has several Series still go complete.



These Videos are meant to be played on a computer. Links to the files are provided so you can Right-Click and "Save Target As..." or "Save Linked Content..." or whatever your browser calls the Save a Link's file to your Computer. Stream only works partially, and not very natively to most browsers.



Code:
[SIZE=13px]Note: I normally recommend playing the videos in a client other than Windows Media Player.  Either VLC or the CCCP-Codec Project will fit the bill pretty well.  If you already know how to watch "downloaded" Video Content, then you already have this, so don't worry about it.

You can find VLC [url=http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html]here[/url] and the CCCP Codec Project [url=http://cccp-project.net]here[/url].  VLC is a good option on Mac & Linux.

I'd also recommend a YouTube Video Download tool.  I prefer to have the videos in a separate client.  It  starting, stopping and zooming in a lot easier.[/SIZE]

Start Here:

First 4 Videos
- Right-Click and download videos #1 to #4. Either from the links here or off the webpage.

That means Videos:
1) What Every New & Or Aspiring Forex Trader... Wants To Know
2) The Excellence Of Execution
3) Forex Risk Management
4) Contending With Trade Psychology

This is the Core and the Place to start. You will *NEED* to take notes. ICT is giving you access to the ability to make more money than all but the highest of paying careers. It takes time, effort and patience. It's an entire skill set you need to learn.

Also, these videos are intentionally without Audio. ICT did this so you actually have to pay attention. He likes to force that on people.

5) Handling Losses and Inevitable Drawdowns
6) Major Market Analysis

This is the end of the "introductory" series. Video #5, "Handling Losses & Inevitable Drawdowns" is his single most valuable video. This isn't a joke. That 25 minute video is, after sorting out all of his work, the single most important piece. Without taking the concept to heart, you're just going to hurt yourself in Forex or any trading for that matter. While technically separate from the "technical" parts of Trading, controlling your Risk is the only way you stay in the game. And this lesson comes from a Man that lost 3 million at one point, along with a $500,000 USD in 1 month. (And this was when 500k was worth a lot more!) Learn from his teaching, even if you never use anything else he teaches, this video alone *will* provide you a chance at a career in trading.

Next, Read These:

1) Humble Beginngins
2) Trading Major Reactions
3) Keys to Directional Bias
4) On Professionalism, by Jack, founder of FXGears and also a professional trader


ICT has his prefered Teaching List, now, and with more videos available on his Website, that's probably the way to go. Some would suggest the Sniper Series 3rd, which I can see.

Basic Outline of Next Series:

ICT Tutorials Page


1) "What Every New And/Or Aspiring Forex Trader Wants To Know" or the "WENT" series from 2014. This is currently only on his website, so I don't know if the links will work when someone tries this.

1) WENT #1
2) WENT #2
3) WENT #3
4) WENT #4
5) WENT #5

This is the "rebooted" initial teaching series. While it's very useful, I think the original, silent series, is still the place I would suggest to start.


Trade Plan Development Series:

1) Trading Plan Development Series - Part 1
2) Trading Plan Development Series - Part 2
3) Trading Plan Development Series - Part 3
4) Trading Plan Development Series - Part 4
5) Trading Plan Development Series - Part 5
6) Trading Plan Development Series - Part 6
7) Trading Plan Development Series - Part 7


Code:
1) Trading Plan Development Series - Part 1 - no YouTube version.
2) http://youtu.be/Ld9KzrzbhWM Trading Plan Development Series - Part 2 
3) http://youtu.be/qLDXYX-RtGQ Trading Plan Development Series - Part 3 
4) http://youtu.be/mxf3k7GcWts Trading Plan Development Series - Part 4 
5) http://youtu.be/Pg6UAq_rdG8 Trading Plan Development Series - Part 5 
6) http://youtu.be/zCbrKHMq-OE Trading Plan Development Series - Part 6 
7) http://youtu.be/VNi2Zsr1EQI Trading Plan Development Series - Part 7


With all of the Trade Plan Development series back, this is probably serves a person as a "total trader" better. If you want to get Professioinal, faster, this is the series. If you want to make your Demo account look better, the Scout Sniper Series will get you there a little faster. These two series need to both to learned from, deeply, but it's up to you which you want to go through first.


Scout Sniper Field Guide Series:

1) Scout Sniper Field Guide #1
2) Scout Sniper Field Guide #2
3) Scout Sniper Field Guide #3
4) Scout Sniper Field Guide #4
5) Scout Sniper Field Guide #5
6) Scout Sniper Field Guide #6
7) Scout Sniper Field Guide #7
8: Scout Sniper Field Guide #8



Code:
YouTube links left in a format that won't cause them to embed.

1) http://youtu.be/A0VgxFD2Brs Scout Sniper Field Guide #1
2) http://youtu.be/mdKhcUStZ_U Scout Sniper Field Guide #2
3) http://youtu.be/CfPDHq3P_7Y Scout Sniper Field Guide #3
4) http://youtu.be/QCz8nvnv72o Scout Sniper Field Guide #4
5) http://youtu.be/At4OARSMM9Q Scout Sniper Field Guide #5
6) http://youtu.be/4hW0TwRm408 Scout Sniper Field Guide #6
7) http://youtu.be/0FZ4NP_zfXY Scout Sniper Field Guide #7
8: http://youtu.be/5EIeZbPcyro Scout Sniper Field Guide #8

The Sniper series is over 10 hours of videos, all focused around picking out 1 trader per week and landing it. This is ICT's preferred personal style of trading these days, and it works more than well enough, even in the very low volatility times. This is also the series where Order Blocks (Video #3) is introduced. I also believe this is the first time he calls his Risk Management method "The Shield", but that might be wrong.

Personal Suggestion: It's at this point I should also make note that ICT expects you to Demo trade for at least 6 months. I would recommend at least 3 months of "Sandbox" trading: figure out what 2%, 1% and .5% risk are, and don't attempt to compound it. Journal it up, but this is mostly about getting comfortable behind the charts. After that, for 3 months, set a "clean" Demo Account up on MyFXBook or your preferred analytics tracking tool, and treat that as "real" money. (Or as close as you can get)

Yes, this takes time. But if, after 4 years of work (with plenty of time to do other things), you're making far more money than pretty much anyone out of college will be. And you've been making money along the way. As ICT points out, 100k in a brokerage account, making 10% per month, is netting you 120k per year (before taxes). Do you think you can live on 120k a year? :)


Precision Trading Series (from the huge Library):

1) Precision Trading Series #1
2) Precision Trading Series #2
3) Precision Trading Series #3


The links to this series broke soon after they went up, but so this might be the first chance people have to actually see this series. This, at the time of this guide, is probably ICT's most advanced Teaching Series. Even though we know he's got a few more, deeper tricks up his sleeve. If you've *done* the work to this point, you'll get a lot out of this series. Especially once you get comfortable with 15 & 20 pip SL trades. This series is one I'll be, personally, going back to the most.



From Here to the Massive Library:

This is where life gets interesting with ICT's work. If you get a hold of the Torrent, you get an increasingly large number of video options. Most should be fine with his YouTube Channel and Website. These suggestions are for the Completionist/Diligent Study-type of person.

Suggested Series would be:
1) Power of Three; Power of Three; and anything else he's said on Power of Three.
2) 25 Days of Forexmas
3) Forexmas 2012
4) Central Bank Dealer's Range Video
5) Everything having to do with Market Structure
6) "Inside the Range" teaching (there's a Live Session from August 2012 that's really important)

Past that, ICT has dropped Knowledge Bomb after Knowledge Bomb in the live sessions. However, some are better than others & there's been problems with the recordings. Probably the most useful one he's dropped was using a Daily Chart, line out the "Month Open", and then highlight the trading days leading up to Non-farm Payroll. Add a 10-period Williams%R, and you've got a great chart showing how the market is manipulated. (Plus a very good level to watch for Retracement.)

There are also individual "modules" on different topics. There are certain tactics to use on the European Pairs for London Open, New York Open and London Close. Plus other ones for Asian Session and different parts of the skill set. There's a lot of "extra" tools, but focus firstly on the main series: Even the first 4 videos is enough that, with practice, you can make it to being a "Professional" Trader. It's just not going to happen over night. This is, at the end of it, not a "get rich quick" scheme. It's a "learn a skill, make loads of money from that skill" methodology.

GLGT - Good Luck & Good Trading.
 
That should work a little better. No more loading 15 YouTube Flash instances. Comments, suggestions or otherwise are appreciated.

I still plan to add more in the future, but as ICT got his website up (and working) just the other day, I wanted to put up a better version, updated with the latest links. This also allows me to ignore improving this guide for a few months. :)
 
Next version I'll remove the YouTube Links to the Sniper Series, as that was removed. Most of this stuff is only on his Website now.
 
Thanks sqa, I have all these downloaded but there is such a mass of information that it can be hard to know where to start. I wasn't quite ready for the Sniper Scout series although that's where I started, so it delayed me by a few months due to being overwhelmed and taking a break.

Now that my personal affairs are sorted, back to the grind stone :)) 8) ;D
 
"Past that, ICT has dropped Knowledge Bomb after Knowledge Bomb in the live sessions. However, some are better than others & there's been problems with the recordings. Probably the most useful one he's dropped was using a Daily Chart, line out the "Month Open", and then highlight the trading days leading up to Non-farm Payroll. Add a 10-period Williams%R, and you've got a great chart showing how the market is manipulated. (Plus a very good level to watch for Retracement.)"

Hi Sqa,
Would you by any chance happen to have this recording please that you might be able to share. Thanks.
By the way you did an awesome job, keep it up.
I for one am very grateful, and greatly appreciate it.
Kudos to you buddy !!!!!!!!!!!
Take care, keep well,
DrFeelgood
 
The session either wasn't recorded or one of those that was recorded at a resolution that simply wasn't useful. It was in a set of notes I was taking on the fly. ICT was also on a monster Rabbit Trail. That's when he randomly dropped that.

It's also a little more functional, if you mark out a few things:

1) Mark out the days leading up to NFP. The week minus the Friday.
2) Mark the 4pm level on the Last Trading day of the Month. Call this "Month Open".
3) Read up on how to use a William %R properly.

They're always consolidating, in some form, pre-NFP. It's why it's valuable to keep track of. And the Month "Open" is always a valuable level. Firstly, because it operates as a Power of Three for the Monthly Chart; secondly, because it's a level that'll either be collected at or blown through. (Quarter High/Lows tend to operate this way, as well, given huge supplies of levels at them.)

This ties in, a lot, with the "Trader's Trinity" tool. I don't use that much (as I've been moving more and more to just clean charts + KSR + MS), but it has a good synergy with them, especially for Daily Chart trading.
 
Hey Sqa,
Thanks for this thread. I'm an old follower of ICT and have taken a pretty long break. Looks like I have some catching up to do. Your first post was very helpful.
Thanks
 
Awesome thread. Does anyone have links to these?

4) Central Bank Dealer's Range Video
6) "Inside the Range" teaching (there's a Live Session from August 2012 that's really important)

Would be much appreciated. :)
 
Inside the Range is a webinar, it's in the "old" Torrent. ;)

But here's the Notes: http://fxgears.com/forum/index.php/topic,226.msg5126.html#msg5126

ICT did a little cleaner version that he's called "L-7 Range". (He's had trouble teaching this to his kids, but the concept works really strongly)

http://theinnercircletrader.com/Tutorials/Precision/Precision_3.mp4


The CDR stuff was over a set of live session and a YouTube Video. Live Session isn't available, but here's the YouTube Video:
Code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyuJ9NkIxnQ
 
sqa said:
Inside the Range is a webinar, it's in the "old" Torrent. ;)

But here's the Notes: http://fxgears.com/forum/index.php/topic,226.msg5126.html#msg5126

ICT did a little cleaner version that he's called "L-7 Range". (He's had trouble teaching this to his kids, but the concept works really strongly)

http://theinnercircletrader.com/Tutorials/Precision/Precision_3.mp4


The CDR stuff was over a set of live session and a YouTube Video. Live Session isn't available, but here's the YouTube Video:
Code:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyuJ9NkIxnQ

Thank you!
 
Sqa's the man. December has been one of my most productive months yet, thanks in part to this guide. It was last April when I attempted the Scout Sniper series but it was over my head. Now I understand all of it.
 
Decoherence said:
Sqa's the man. December has been one of my most productive months yet, thanks in part to this guide. It was last April when I attempted the Scout Sniper series but it was over my head. Now I understand all of it.

After ICT is "done", I plan to have a much extended version of this Guide.
 
sqa said:
After ICT is "done", I plan to have a much extended version of this Guide.
thank you sqa for all your hard work ,you have some great finds :thumbsup:
 
I want to produce a much more thorough guide to the Video Library, plus some form of meta-tags for them. Especially with the WENT series having significant portions of Forexmas 2011 & 2012 in them. (Not the same topic, but the actual videos)

It'll make review a lot easier. But that's going to be a ton of work. (Plus a solid excuse to rewatch videos, myself)
 
Hi guys.

First off, thank you sqa for putting together this Guide - I've recently come back to studying Forex and want to get serious about it. I remembered ICT's stuff from babypips a couple years ago when I first took slight interest in Forex, but I never really delved into it (or Forex) all that seriously. Of course, the man has released a LOT of info over the years on Forex, and so knowing what to learn and when, and really making sense of it all is kind of daunting.

So having a guide that really presents things in a cohesive way is awesome and super valuable!

I've been going through the list in order, and am currently up to the Trading Plan Development series. I've been taking notes like a mad man, and really trying to internalize/understand the bigger picture as I go along, rather than just dumbly writing down notes.

I wanted to ask people here that have gone through ICT's teachings and really developed a solid understanding of them - will the concepts shared in his content make sense as you go along? Or is it important that I'm really stopping along the way and comprehensively "attacking" every lead or concept that ICT throws at me?

For instance, this first video in the Trading Plan Development Series is throwing a lot of concepts that are completely foreign at me, such as Intermarket and Fundamental Analysis Concepts. I don't know jack squat about all the various asset classes, bonds, futures etc... Should I stop now and go tackle those concepts completely before continuing on? Or will ICT expound more on them and their respective places in the bigger picture along the way?
 
Chrisrocs said:
Hi guys.

First off, thank you sqa for putting together this Guide - I've recently come back to studying Forex and want to get serious about it. I remembered ICT's stuff from babypips a couple years ago when I first took slight interest in Forex, but I never really delved into it (or Forex) all that seriously. Of course, the man has released a LOT of info over the years on Forex, and so knowing what to learn and when, and really making sense of it all is kind of daunting.

So having a guide that really presents things in a cohesive way is awesome and super valuable!

I've been going through the list in order, and am currently up to the Trading Plan Development series. I've been taking notes like a mad man, and really trying to internalize/understand the bigger picture as I go along, rather than just dumbly writing down notes.

I wanted to ask people here that have gone through ICT's teachings and really developed a solid understanding of them - will the concepts shared in his content make sense as you go along? Or is it important that I'm really stopping along the way and comprehensively "attacking" every lead or concept that ICT throws at me?

For instance, this first video in the Trading Plan Development Series is throwing a lot of concepts that are completely foreign at me, such as Intermarket and Fundamental Analysis Concepts. I don't know jack squat about all the various asset classes, bonds, futures etc... Should I stop now and go tackle those concepts completely before continuing on? Or will ICT expound more on them and their respective places in the bigger picture along the way?

If you find the person that profitably integrates ICT's "teachings" on Intermarket and Fundamental Analysis, please tell me.

I don't even look at the USDX.

whenever I start trying to get any fancier than retracements and stop runs, I start to lose money.

I think I'm the only student that will be this honest with you, so hope you appreciate it. :p
 
Functionally, it works like this:

Some of ICT's Stuff "sticks", others "doesn't make sense".

Demo trade the stuff that *Sticks* and only that.

Go back later and try to work through what you think might help your trading Style. Realize that ICT students trade all over the spectrum for time frames.

But the "core" is always: Key S&R, Market Structure, Order Flow. Everything builds off that. Those are the Core Concepts you need to get nailed down, no matter what. They'll let you read price action, which is where Intermarket Analysis can be very useful.
 
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