What is the ICT silver bullet?

ICT noticed that certain hours often bring a short, clean move: price takes liquidity on one side, displaces the other way and leaves a fair value gap. The silver bullet trades that gap — but only if it forms inside the window.

The time filter is the point. The same pattern outside the window does not count, which keeps the trader out of the market most of the day.

EURUSDFVG inside 10:00–11:00 NYLow swept
Inside the window price sweeps a low, displaces up and leaves a gap; the return into the gap is the entry.

The example in numbers

Fair value gap1.08470–1.08560 · 9 pips · 50% at 1.08515
Entry (long)1.08540 — inside the gap
Stop1.08360 — 2 pips below the sweep (18 pips)
Target1.08840 — the next high (30 pips)
Reward to risk1.67R · breaks even at a 38% win rate

EURUSD prices from the chart above (Silver bullet), entry at 1.08540. At 1.67R, this setup needs to win more than 38% of the time to make money before costs. Try your own levels in the risk/reward calculator.

Silver bullet: how to spot it

  1. Wait for one of the windows: 03:00–04:00, 10:00–11:00 or 14:00–15:00 New York time.
  2. Look for a run on liquidity — a sweep of a recent low or high — inside the window.
  3. Wait for displacement the other way that leaves a fair value gap.
  4. Enter on the return into the gap, with the stop beyond the sweep and a target at the next liquidity.

Definitions differ

Some traders use only the 10:00–11:00 window; others all three. Many want a minimum distance to the target, such as 10–15 points on indices, before taking the trade.

Common mistakes

  • Taking gaps outside the window

    The setup is defined by time. A gap at 11:20 is just a gap; the journal can show whether the window matters for you.

  • No liquidity run first

    Without a sweep before the displacement, the gap is weaker and fails more often.

  • Using the broker clock

    The windows are New York time. On a server at New York + 7 hours, 10:00 New York shows as 17:00.

Your win rate on Silver bullet

A definition does not tell you whether your Silver bullet 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 Silver bullet under Entry criteria — the most used criteria get keys 1–9.

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

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Killzones and sessions in your time zone →

Questions

›What times are the ICT silver bullet windows?

03:00–04:00, 10:00–11:00 and 14:00–15:00 New York time. The 10:00–11:00 window is the most quoted.

›Is the silver bullet the same as a fair value gap trade?

It is a fair value gap trade with two filters: a liquidity run first, and only inside the time windows.

›Does the silver bullet work on forex?

ICT taught it mostly on index futures, but traders apply it to forex too. Tag your trades with it and look at the win rate by killzone.

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