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Glossary — ICT Abbreviations

Single-page lookup for every abbreviation used in this library. Each entry links to the canonical concept file (file may not yet exist if its phase hasn't shipped — entries marked (pending) will be wired up as their phase lands).

Format: **ABBR** — full term — short note — link.

A

  • AMD — Accumulation, Manipulation, Distribution. The three-phase market-maker cycle. → power-of-three
  • APD — Algorithmic Price Delivery. The notion that price is delivered by an algorithm, not random walk. → algorithmic-price-delivery
  • ATH / ATL — All-Time High / All-Time Low.

B

  • BB — Breaker Block. An order block whose extreme has been broken; flips polarity. → breaker-block
  • BISI — Buy-side Imbalance / Sell-side Inefficiency. The bullish form of an FVG. → bullish-fvg
  • BOS — Break of Structure. Price making a new swing high (bullish) or low (bearish) in the current trend direction. → bos-bullish / bos-bearish
  • BPR — Balanced Price Range. A range with overlapping bullish and bearish FVGs. → balanced-price-range
  • BSL — Buy-Side Liquidity. Resting buy-stops above swing highs / equal highs. → buy-side-liquidity

C

D

  • DOL — Draw On Liquidity. The targeted liquidity pool the algorithm is drawn toward. → draw-on-liquidity
  • DST — Daylight Saving Time. Critical for any time-of-day rule; ICT teaches in NY time. → dst-handling

E

  • EQH — Equal Highs. Two or more highs at the same price level — pool of liquidity. → equal-highs
  • EQL — Equal Lows. Mirror of EQH on the sell side. → equal-lows
  • EQ — Equilibrium. The 50% midpoint of a dealing range. → equilibrium-definition
  • ERL — External Range Liquidity. Liquidity outside the current dealing range. → external-range-liquidity

F

  • FOMC — Federal Open Market Committee. The macro event ICT's two-stage delivery model targets. → fomc-two-stage-delivery
  • FVG — Fair Value Gap. Three-candle imbalance where the middle candle's range is not overlapped. → fair-value-gap

H

  • HH / HL / LH / LL — Higher High / Higher Low / Lower High / Lower Low. The four basic structural relationships between consecutive swings. → swing-high / swing-low
  • HOD — High of Day. Daily high; structural reference. → covered in 25-htf-bias
  • HTF — Higher Time Frame. Any TF used to set bias for a lower TF entry. → htf-bias-framework

I

  • IFVG — Inversion FVG. A traded-through FVG whose role flips (support↔resistance). → inversion-fvg
  • IPDA — Interbank Price Delivery Algorithm. ICT's name for the institutional algorithm; uses 20/40/60-day lookbacks. → ipda-definition
  • IRL — Internal Range Liquidity. Liquidity inside the current dealing range (FVGs, OBs, internal swing points). → internal-range-liquidity

L

  • LOD — Low of Day. Daily low; structural reference. → covered in 25-htf-bias
  • LTF — Lower Time Frame. Used for entry refinement.

M

  • MMBM — Market Maker Buy Model. AMD running to upside distribution. → power-of-three
  • MMSM — Market Maker Sell Model. AMD running to downside distribution. → power-of-three
  • MSS — Market Structure Shift. A specific form of CHoCH characterized by displacement through the prior structure level. → mss

N

  • NDOG — New Day Opening Gap. Gap between previous day's close and new day's open at midnight NY. → ndog
  • NFP — Non-Farm Payrolls. Monthly US labor report; high-impact news. → nfp-protocol
  • NWOG — New Week Opening Gap. Gap between Friday close and Sunday/Monday open. → nwog
  • NY — New York time. The canonical timezone for every time-of-day reference in this library (subject to DST). → dst-handling

O

P

  • PD Array — Premium / Discount Array. Any institutional price level (FVG, OB, breaker, equilibrium, etc.). → pd-array-definition
  • PDH / PDL — Previous Day High / Low. Liquidity reference levels for the current day. → covered in 02-liquidity and 25-htf-bias
  • PMH / PML — Previous Month High / Low. Monthly liquidity reference. → covered in 25-htf-bias
  • PO3 — Power of Three. Same as AMD. → power-of-three
  • PWH / PWL — Previous Week High / Low. Weekly liquidity reference. → covered in 25-htf-bias

R

  • R — R-multiple. Profit/loss measured in units of initial risk. → r-multiple

S

  • SD — Standard Deviation (in ICT's projection tool). Used at -1.5, -2, -2.5, -4 SD targets. → standard-deviation-projections
  • SIBI — Sell-side Imbalance / Buy-side Inefficiency. The bearish form of an FVG. → bearish-fvg
  • SMC — Smart Money Concepts. Community rebrand of ICT material. Distinct from ICT-original. SMC vocabulary maps to ICT concepts; see "SMC Vocabulary Cross-Reference" section at the bottom of this file.
  • SMT — Smart Money Technique (divergence). Divergence between correlated assets. → smt-divergence
  • SSL — Sell-Side Liquidity. Resting sell-stops below swing lows / equal lows. → sell-side-liquidity

T

  • TDO — True Day Open. Midnight NY open of the daily candle. → true-day-open
  • TF — Time Frame.
  • TWO — True Week Open. Sunday 18:00 NY (or Monday 00:00 NY depending on broker). → true-week-open

Timeframe Shorthand

Standard chart timeframe abbreviations used throughout the library:

  • M1 — 1-minute
  • M5 — 5-minute
  • M15 — 15-minute
  • M30 — 30-minute
  • H1 — 1-hour
  • H4 — 4-hour
  • D / D1 — Daily
  • W / W1 — Weekly
  • MN / MN1 — Monthly

SMC Vocabulary Cross-Reference

The Smart Money Concepts (SMC) community uses several terms that are synonyms or near-synonyms for ICT-original concepts. ICT did not author the SMC framework — it's a community rebrand — but for searchability, the most-common SMC terms are listed here with their ICT equivalents. Each ICT concept file's Aliases: field has been extended with the corresponding SMC term where applicable.

SMC term ICT equivalent File
Demand zone / demand block Bullish Order Block bullish-order-block
Supply zone / supply block Bearish Order Block bearish-order-block
Liquidity grab Liquidity Sweep (raid / stop hunt) liquidity-sweep
Fakeout / swing failure Turtle Soup (failed breakout) turtle-soup
Internal BOS / external BOS Internal vs external structure + BOS bos-bullish, bos-bearish, internal-structure, external-structure
Imbalance FVG / volume imbalance imbalance-vs-fvg
Buy-side imbalance (BISI) / Sell-side imbalance (SIBI) Bullish / Bearish FVG bullish-fvg, bearish-fvg
Equal highs / equal lows Same as ICT (already shared vocabulary) equal-highs, equal-lows
Premium / discount / equilibrium Same (ICT-original) premium-array, discount-array, equilibrium-definition
Compression Range contraction / accumulation phase range-contraction, accumulation-phase
Order flow Same (covered as full directory) 03-order-flow/ (6 files)

Terms in SMC-only territory (not ICT-original, not in this library):

  • Engulfing block — community-coined OB variant; not part of ICT canon.
  • Wyckoff spring / upthrust — Wyckoff terminology sometimes blended with SMC; out of scope per this library's ICT-only policy.

If a community-attributed concept becomes important enough to add (precedent: CRT in concepts/21-crt/), it should be filed under its own directory with confidence: community-attributed and an explicit ## ICT vs Community section per AGENTS.md.