What is a liquidity sweep in trading?

Above swing highs sit buy stops: the stop losses of short sellers and the orders of breakout buyers. Below swing lows sit sell stops. ICT calls them buy-side and sell-side liquidity. Equal highs or equal lows are the most obvious pools, because so many traders place stops just beyond them.

A sweep happens when price trades through that level, fills those orders, and then closes back on the original side. The wick beyond the level is the sweep. A breakout is different: price closes beyond the level and keeps going.

EURUSDEqual lows: sell-side liquidityBuy-side liquidity
Two lows at the same level hold sell stops. One candle wicks below them and closes back inside; price then runs to the high on the other side.

The example in numbers

Entry (long)1.08380 — close of the sweep candle
Stop1.08200 — 2 pips below the sweep wick (18 pips)
Target1.08700 — buy-side liquidity at the old high (32 pips)
Reward to risk1.78R · breaks even at a 36% win rate

EURUSD prices from the chart above (Liquidity sweep), entry at 1.08380. At 1.78R, this setup needs to win more than 36% of the time to make money before costs. Try your own levels in the risk/reward calculator.

Liquidity sweep: how to spot it

  1. Mark obvious liquidity: equal highs or lows, the previous day’s high or low, the Asian range, a clean swing point.
  2. Watch for a candle that trades beyond the level and closes back inside — a long wick through it.
  3. Look for confirmation: a break of structure or a change of character in the other direction on a lower timeframe.
  4. Put the stop beyond the sweep’s wick, and the target at liquidity on the other side.

Definitions differ

Other names are stop hunt, liquidity grab, stop run and — in ICT’s older teaching — turtle soup. Some traders require the close back inside on the same candle; others allow a close back within two or three candles.

Common mistakes

  • Catching a breakout as a sweep

    If candles close beyond the level and hold, it was a breakout. The close back inside is what turns it into a sweep.

  • Stop just under the level, not under the wick

    The sweep wick is the real extreme. A stop between the level and the wick sits right where the next sweep goes.

  • Sweeps outside the active hours

    Many ICT traders only trust sweeps of the Asian range or the previous day’s levels during the London or New York killzones. Your journal can show whether that holds for you.

Your win rate on Liquidity sweep

A definition does not tell you whether your Liquidity sweep trades pay. Your own record does: in the journal, open a trade from MT4 or MT5 and press the key of Liquidity sweep under Entry criteria — the most used criteria get keys 1–9.

Reports then show Liquidity sweep by itself: trades, win rate without breakeven trades, average R and P&L, and Liquidity sweep in each ICT killzone, which is set on every trade by itself. Combinations such as Liquidity sweep with another criterion appear once they have 15 trades, so a lucky streak does not look like an edge.

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Questions

›What is the difference between a liquidity sweep and a liquidity grab?

Most traders use them for the same thing. Some reserve “grab” for a very fast wick and “sweep” for a run through a wider pool of levels.

›What is buy-side and sell-side liquidity?

Buy-side liquidity is the buy stops resting above highs; sell-side liquidity is the sell stops below lows. A sweep of sell-side liquidity often comes before a move up.

›Which levels get swept most often?

Equal highs and lows, the previous day’s high and low, and the Asian session range before London are the common ones in forex.

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