At a bearish rejection block, two or more candles at a swing high leave long upper wicks: buyers pushed price up, sellers drove it straight back down. The zone runs from the highest body (open or close) to the highest wick.
When price returns to that area, traders look to sell at the body level, with the stop above the wicks. A bullish rejection block forms at a swing low with long lower wicks.
| Rejection block | 1.08560–1.08740 · 18 pips · 50% at 1.08650 |
|---|---|
| Entry (short) | 1.08560 — the highest body level |
| Stop | 1.08760 — 2 pips above the wicks (20 pips) |
| Target | 1.08280 — the next low (28 pips) |
| Reward to risk | 1.40R · breaks even at a 42% win rate |
EURUSD prices from the chart above (Rejection block), entry at 1.08560. At 1.40R, this setup needs to win more than 42% of the time to make money before costs. Try your own levels in the risk/reward calculator.
Some draw the block from the candle bodies’ midpoint to the wick; others need the wicks to sweep an earlier high first. A single long wick is often called a rejection rather than a block.
A single wick can be noise. Several wicks at the same area show repeated rejection.
The entry is the body level; selling at the tip of the wicks needs price to reach the extreme again.
Wicks at the high of a strong uptrend may only mark a pause. Combine the block with a structure shift.
A definition does not tell you whether your Rejection block trades pay. Your own record does: in the journal, open a trade from MT4 or MT5 and add it once as your own entry criterion with “+”, then press the key of Rejection block under Entry criteria — the most used criteria get keys 1–9.
Reports then show Rejection block by itself: trades, win rate without breakeven trades, average R and P&L, and Rejection block in each ICT killzone, which is set on every trade by itself. Combinations such as Rejection block with another criterion appear once they have 15 trades, so a lucky streak does not look like an edge.
An order block is a candle’s range before a move. A rejection block is the wick area at the turn, where price was pushed away.
A few pips beyond the wicks. If price closes above them, the rejection has failed.
They show on any timeframe; many traders mark them on the hourly or 4-hour chart and enter on a lower one.