Foundation: Candles, Swings and Ranges
Learn to describe candles, sequences, swing points and selected ranges before using ICT vocabulary.
Before learning ICT labels, make the chart's smallest units clear. A beginner can confuse one candle, a sequence, a swing and a range, then build a different conclusion on each without noticing.
What one candle shows
A candle represents one interval: a day, hour or five minutes depending on the chart. It contains the open, high, low and close. The body shows the open-to-close change; the wicks show the excursion during the interval.
A candle tells you what happened in that interval. A sequence tells you how price is organizing movement: progressing, pausing, retracing or overlapping. ICT concepts are usually sequence observations, not conclusions from one candle.
Swings and selected ranges
A swing high is a local high followed by a retreat; a swing low is a local low followed by a bounce. A swing is a hindsight observation, not a forecast. It also depends on timeframe: a clear five-minute swing can be a small internal movement on an hourly chart.
A selected range is a price interval chosen for a question, often from an obvious swing low to swing high or the reverse. If price moved from 100 to 120 and is now at 112, the 100–120 interval can be the selected range. Only after choosing it does equilibrium or premium/discount have a reference.
Keep the timeframe visible
The same chart can show a retracement on the daily layer and a reversal on the five-minute layer. Both descriptions may be true at their own layers. Write the timeframe beside every swing, range and location statement instead of silently combining them.
Why this comes first
- Without a sequence, expansion and retracement are vague.
- Without swing points, prior highs and lows are unstable references.
- Without a selected range, equilibrium and relative location have no anchor.
- Without a timeframe, the observation layer cannot be reviewed.
Practice
On a historical chart, write the timeframe, mark one obvious range, label its two swing endpoints, and describe whether price is progressing, retracing, overlapping or paused. Finish with: “This does not establish that price will …”
Boundary
This lesson builds chart language. It does not introduce entries, stops, targets, win rates or directional rules.