ICT Session Ranges

What are ICT Session Ranges?

ICT session ranges are fixed evening windows, clocked in New York time, whose highs and lows become measuring tools for the following trading day. The two core ranges are the Central Bank Dealers Range (CBDR), drawn from 2:00 pm to 8:00 pm New York time, and the Asian range, drawn in ICT's usage from 8:00 pm to midnight. When the CBDR is too tall to be useful there is a fallback, the flout: a wider composite window spanning the New York afternoon consolidation through midnight, effectively CBDR and Asian range together, with boundaries that vary between write-ups. These are quiet, thin-participation hours, and the framework treats their consolidation as the baseline the next day's expansion is measured from.

The classic application projects the range's height in standard deviations (meaning simple multiples of the range here, not statistical deviations) above and below its boundaries, commonly one to four, to frame where the next day's high or low might form around the London open. CBDR projections are conventionally measured on candle bodies rather than wicks, and the method is taught as conditional: tight ranges project cleanly, while wide ones degrade the tool; community write-ups often cite roughly 40 pips or less on major forex pairs as the workable ceiling. The ranges also double as session liquidity references, the Asian range's extremes being a favorite marker for London's first stop run.

How to mark ICT session ranges

These are rule-drawn boxes rather than judgment calls; the work is in getting the clock and the measurement convention right.

1. 1Set the chart to New York time. All of the windows are defined against the New York clock (through daylight-saving changes), so UTC or exchange-time charts will place them wrongly.
2. 2Box the CBDR from 2:00 pm to 8:00 pm New York time, conventionally using candle bodies (the open–close extremes) rather than wicks.
3. 3Box the Asian range from 8:00 pm to midnight New York time; write-ups differ on bodies versus wicks here, so pick one convention and keep it.
4. 4Project the deviations: replicate each box's height above its high and below its low (one, two, three, four units) and watch how the next day's price interacts with those levels, particularly around London.

How traders use it

• To frame the next day's extremes: the projected deviations act as candidate zones for the daily high or low, watched most closely in the hours around the London open after a quiet overnight consolidation.
• As a manipulation reference: an early London run through one side of the Asian range is a classic candidate for the Judas swing, the false leg of the day's accumulation–manipulation–distribution sequence, with the true expansion expected the other way.
• As a go/no-go filter: a tight CBDR marks the coiled conditions the projection method wants; a bloated CBDR says switch to the flout or leave the tool alone that day.
• As timing confluence: deviation tags carry more weight inside killzones than in dead hours, so a second- or third-deviation touch during the London window is the version of the setup traders actually wait for.

ICT session ranges vs. related concepts