Concept
Turtle Soup
Turtle Soup, also known as ICT turtle soup, is a Market Structure concept. The Library holds 3 implementations, each one a working definition you can pull into Quant.
Connors
Top Turtle Soup indicators
3 total
What is Turtle Soup?
Turtle Soup is a failed-breakout reversal setup published by Laurence Connors and Linda Raschke in Street Smarts (1995), named at the expense of the Turtles, the trend-following group trained by Richard Dennis whose rules bought 20-day channel breakouts. The setup fades exactly that entry. In the original buy rules, today prints a new 20-day low while the previous 20-day low is at least four sessions old; the trade enters on a buy stop back above that prior low, so it only triggers if the breakout is already failing, with the initial stop below the new extreme. The sell side mirrors this at fresh 20-day highs, and a next-day variant (Turtle Soup Plus One) allows the reclaim to happen one session later.
Smart Money Concepts traders later borrowed the name for the same event told in liquidity language: price runs an obvious prior high or low, the liquidity sweep consumes resting stops and breakout entries, and the failure to hold beyond the level becomes the reversal trade. The chart event is identical; the difference is that the original is a rule-defined, countertrend fade of fresh 20-day extremes, while the ICT version is discretionary and usually demands structure confirmation before entry. Either way, the edge claimed is positioning against trapped breakout traders, and it fails whenever the breakout turns out to be real.
How traders use it
- As a rule-based fade of fresh extremes: the classic form buys a failed break below a 20-day low (or sells a failed break above a 20-day high), entering on a stop back inside the old range so the market must already be reclaiming the level before any position exists.
- As an entry model inside Smart Money Concepts: a raid through an old high or low that immediately rejects is traded back toward the opposite liquidity, typically only after a change of character or an impulsive leg away from the swept level confirms the reversal.
- As a risk template: the violated extreme supplies the invalidation. Stops sit beyond the sweep's furthest point, and the idea is abandoned if price closes back outside the reclaimed level instead of rotating away from it.
Turtle Soup vs similar setups
Liquidity Sweep: A sweep names the raid itself: the run through resting stops beyond a level. Turtle Soup is a tradeable setup built on that event, with a defined entry back inside the range and a stop beyond the raid's extreme. Every turtle soup starts with a sweep; most sweeps are never traded.
Swing Failure Pattern: The SFP applies the same failure logic to any swing high or low and usually requires a close back inside the level. Original Turtle Soup is narrower: it fades specifically a fresh 20-day extreme whose prior extreme is at least several sessions old.
False Breakout: The umbrella term for any break that fails to hold, with no entry mechanics attached. Turtle Soup is one codified way to trade a false breakout, aimed at the stops and late entries stranded when a channel breakout fails.
Related concepts · Structure events
Concept family
Market Structure
31 concepts mapped · 26 in the Library
Turtle Soup FAQ
Is Turtle Soup the same thing as a liquidity sweep?
The underlying event is the same: price trades through a prior extreme, fails to hold, and reverses. Turtle Soup is the older, rule-defined way to trade it, with specific lookback and entry-stop mechanics, while sweep vocabulary comes from Smart Money Concepts and is applied discretionarily to any resting-liquidity level. Many modern strategies use the two names interchangeably.
Where does the name Turtle Soup come from?
From the Turtles, the trend followers trained by Richard Dennis, whose published system bought 20-day breakouts. Connors and Raschke built a setup to profit precisely when those breakouts fail, so turning failed Turtle entries into profits became 'turtle soup'. ICT later adopted the name for stop-run reversals at prior highs and lows.
Build Turtle Soup your way.
Quant writes, tests, and refines it with you — then it runs on LuxAlgo charting or ports to TradingView.