Michael J. Huddleston, or the Inner Circle Trader, is the man responsible for the rise of a trading strategy called ICT. Now an extremely popular phenomenon - especially in the Twitter (X) space - ICT trading focuses on price action to the exclusion of other indicators such as momentum and trends, and it has garnered plenty of followers along the way.
ICT is a trading methodology or philosophy based on identifying areas of high liquidity concentration in the charts, and retail traders tend to be extremely familiar with these zones since it’s where they tend to set stop-losses or simply close their position.
So, if you’re interested in upping your technical trading game, should you go directly to the source if you want to learn all about ICT and seek out The Inner Circle Trader himself?
Why Join The Inner Circle Trader?
There are plenty of subscribers to ICT, and that’s true in both the figurative and literal sense in this case. While The Inner Circle Trader previously taught his philosophy privately on a mentorship basis several years ago, he currently operates via social media and disseminates his content primarily via his YouTube channel.
The Inner Circle Trader YouTube channel has over a million subscribers and counting, which translates to thousands of hits on his videos every day. For this reason, the main investment when it comes to learning about ICT from Huddleston is simply time—his YouTube content is free, so all you need to do is watch and learn.
The Inner Circle Trader’s Twitter/X account is clear about the fact that he doesn’t charge money for his content any longer. This commitment to free content means that you get all of the benefits of his knowledge and expertise without having to pay for it.
As such, you can sample The Inner Circle Trader’s content for yourself at no cost, and decide whether his instructional style is what you’re looking for. He publishes videos extremely frequently, and all of his lectures that you previously had to pay for through mentorship are now free!
What is ICT Trading?
ICT Trading as set out by The Inner Circle Trader has several core principles, and as mentioned previously, one of the most fundamental of these is liquidity. Generally, there are two types of liquidity—buy-side, and sell-side. Buy-side liquidity represents chart levels where short sellers place stops, and sell-side liquidity is where longs place their stops.
What this essentially creates is a channel in which so-called “smart money” traders can accumulate or distribute, and exponents of ICT trading believe that once the concentration of stops has been traded through, the price will reverse.
When this happens, there’s often a period of strong buying or selling pressure that ICT traders call “displacement”. On the chart, these are represented as large-bodied, short-wicked candles grouped the same way.
Within this Displacement, The Inner Circle Trader and his followers point out small sequences called Fair Value Gaps. It’s a common belief in technical trading that gaps always get filled, so these phenomena tend to be especially interesting for ICT traders.
As you might already have gathered, quick and clear identification of these patterns can be extremely lucrative and followers of the ICT trading philosophy look to use scans in order to spot these shifts as they happen. The Inner Circle Trader himself demonstrates how these patterns play out in videos using backtesting.
The Inner Circle Trader began teaching this trading strategy using forex, but traders today are using it across a variety of markets. A lot of ICT traders have also developed their own spin on the formula, developing and innovating while also paying homage to The Inner Circle Trader.
What You Get With ICT Trading
Let’s take a detailed look at some of the pros and cons of subscribing to the ICT trading philosophy:
- All Asset Classes
Even though The Inner Circle Trader pioneered this approach with forex, the trading style has been applied to various asset classes since. - Technical Application
The core elements of ICT trading are easy to program, meaning that you can easily download scanners and signals to highlight some of the ICT concepts on your charts. - Alternative Approach
The ICT trading concepts differ significantly from common technical trading philosophy, so you might discover a viable alternative or just a style that suits you more. - Institutional Strategy
Understanding the basics of ICT trading gives you a look into institutional trading philosophy and smart money concepts (SMC), and the focus on block orders should not be underestimated. - Risk Management
If you adopt ICT trading principles you will also need to develop your own risk management ability as optimum entry is one of the most difficult elements of the style to master.
Picking the Right Package
The Inner Circle Trader doesn’t currently run a private mentorship group or charge money for his content, so if you want to learn ICT Trading directly from him it’s just a matter of visiting his YouTube channel. There, you can check out the core content lectures for his private mentorship groups back in 2016 and 2017.
Huddleston also publishes more current content as well as livestreams on various trades and ICT concepts although he turns comments off on the latter. As such, what you’re getting directly from The Inner Circle Trader nowadays tends to be broadcasted content rather than more personalized or interactive guidance and mentorship.
Check out Whop for More Hands-On Mentorship Options!
The Inner Circle Trader is the pioneer of ICT trading, a style now named after him, so you should definitely check out his YouTube channel if you want to learn more about how it works. Content that was previously premium is now available for free, so it’s a fantastic place to start if you want the basics, and if you enjoy Huddleston’s style there are hundreds of videos there for you.
Nevertheless, there’s still something to be said for more personalized training and mentorship, and ICT trading is one of the many trading philosophies that the best trading coaches offer today.
👉 If you want to find the right mentor in order to level up your trading skills even quicker, Whop’s Trading page is for you. It’s got all of the hottest trading communities and Discord servers out there, so you’re covered for mentorship and hands-on coaching as well as an exclusive group of like-minded traders to enjoy the journey with.
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