Short answer: ict macros are fixed windows of roughly twenty minutes, mostly placed around the top of an hour. Inside them, the ICT method expects price delivery to speed up and reach for a nearby pool of liquidity or fill an imbalance. The best known one runs 09:50 to 10:10 New York time. That is 14:50 to 15:10 UTC in winter and 13:50 to 14:10 UTC in summer. Use a macro as a timer, never as a signal. Mark the liquidity target before the window, then act only if price runs for it inside the window.
Macros sit inside kill zones the way a minute hand sits inside an hour hand. If the broader session windows are new to you, read our guide to the four ICT kill zones first, then come back here for the twenty-minute detail.
What a macro is, and what it is not
In the ICT method, the market is treated as if an algorithm delivers price from one liquidity pool to the next. Between pools it pauses to rebalance any imbalance it left behind. A macro is a scheduled slot in that delivery. The claim is that the engine is punctual: around certain minutes of the day, price stops drifting and does something consequential. It runs through a recent high or low to collect the orders resting there. Or it returns to an unfilled gap on the chart and trades back through it.
Three ideas carry the whole concept.
- Market timing: the window is defined by the clock, never by a pattern. A macro begins at 09:50 whether or not the chart looks interesting.
- Liquidity: the destination is a cluster of resting orders, usually stops above an obvious high or below an obvious low.
- Price delivery: the way price travels between those pools, fast and lopsided inside the window, sluggish and lumpy outside it.
A macro is a timing layer that sits on top of trading strategies built on liquidity and imbalance. It does not manufacture high probability trades; it narrows the hours in which you look for them. Our guide to the core ICT trading strategy covers the entry models a macro is meant to time.
The macro windows in New York time and UTC
The ICT method anchors every clock to New York. UTC readers need two conversions, because New York runs five hours behind UTC in winter and four in summer. Sources differ by a minute or two at the edges, so choose one set of times and stick with it for a month.
| Macro | New York time | UTC, New York winter | UTC, New York summer | What tends to happen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| London 1 | 02:33 to 03:00 | 07:33 to 08:00 | 06:33 to 07:00 | First run at the Asian range high or low |
| London 2 | 04:03 to 04:30 | 09:03 to 09:30 | 08:03 to 08:30 | Second push, or reversal of the first |
| New York AM 1 | 08:50 to 09:10 | 13:50 to 14:10 | 12:50 to 13:10 | Reaction to the 08:30 data |
| New York AM 2 | 09:50 to 10:10 | 14:50 to 15:10 | 13:50 to 14:10 | Sweep of the opening range |
| New York AM 3 | 10:50 to 11:10 | 15:50 to 16:10 | 14:50 to 15:10 | Run at the morning high or low |
| Lunch | 11:50 to 12:10 | 16:50 to 17:10 | 15:50 to 16:10 | Shallow retrace, often a dud |
| New York PM | 13:10 to 13:40 | 18:10 to 18:40 | 17:10 to 17:40 | Afternoon continuation or reversal |
| Last hour | 15:15 to 15:45 | 20:15 to 20:45 | 19:15 to 19:45 | Squaring into the equity close |
Two calendar details matter. The New York morning macros are tied to the US cash equity session, so they lose most of their meaning on a US market holiday. The NYSE trading hours and holiday calendar is where to check the regular session times and the days the exchange does not open. Second, the UK and the US do not change their clocks on the same weekend. For two or three weeks each spring and one week each autumn, the London open lands an hour away from its usual New York slot. During those weeks the two London macros turn patchy.
What price tends to do inside a macro
These are tendencies, observed often enough to be worth planning for, and nothing stronger. Inside a macro, price mostly does one of three things.
It runs for liquidity. This is the most common shape. Price drifts for twenty or thirty minutes, then accelerates in the first five minutes of the window. It trades through the nearest obvious high or low by a few points and stalls. The stall is the useful part. If the run was a stop hunt rather than a breakout, the reversal often starts before the window ends.
It rebalances. Suppose the previous hour left a clean imbalance, a visible hole between the wicks of two candles. The macro often sends price back through that hole, then continues in the prior direction. This version is quieter and easier to miss.
It does nothing. A fair share of macros are unremarkable: a few jittery candles, no level touched, no gap filled. The correct action is to close the chart and wait for the next one. A trader who insists on a trade in a dud window will squander risk for no reason.
The move is often violently fast on a one-minute chart and barely visible on a fifteen-minute chart. A higher time frame tells you which side the liquidity sits on; the lower time frame shows the delivery. An indicator that shades the windows on your chart is handy for the clock, and it carries no view on direction.
A checklist for pairing a macro with a liquidity target
The macro answers when. The liquidity target answers where. Neither works alone. Ten minutes before the window:
- Pick one instrument. Gold, a US index CFD and the major pairs respond to the New York macros; the London macros suit EUR/USD and GBP/USD.
- On the fifteen-minute chart, mark the nearest pool on each side: the session high and low, any equal highs or lows, the previous day's extremes.
- Note which side price is closer to. That pool is the likely first target of the window.
- Check the calendar. A release scheduled inside the window makes the delivery disorderly, so decide now whether you trade through it.
- Write the stop and the position size before the clock reaches the start minute.
During the window:
- Wait for price to take the marked pool. No sweep, no trade.
- Look for a fast candle back through the level, the same shape as a Judas swing on a smaller scale.
- Enter on the first retrace, stop beyond the sweep wick, target the pool on the opposite side.
If the window closes without a sweep, cancel the plan and wait for the next macro. The hesitancy that costs most traders money is the half-formed entry at 10:08 because the window is nearly over.
A worked example in the 09:50 macro on gold
Gold, 09:50 New York, a 25,000 account risking 0.4 percent, which is 100 per trade. The cash session opened with a tight range: high at 2,410, low at 2,404. Equal highs from the London session sit at 2,412. At 09:52 price climbs through 2,412, trades to 2,413.5, and prints a wide bearish candle that closes back at 2,409 within three minutes. The trader enters short at 2,409 on the first retrace. The stop goes at 2,414.5, one dollar beyond the sweep wick, so the stop distance is 5.5 dollars. On a CFD where one lot represents 100 ounces, a one dollar move is worth 100 per lot. Risk of 100 divided by 5.5 gives roughly 18 per dollar, which rounds down to 0.18 lots.
The first target is the opening range low at 2,404, five dollars away, about 0.9R. The second is the previous day's low at 2,398, eleven dollars away, 2R. Closing half at each target earns roughly 145 if both are reached. A loss is the full 100 plus spread. The important number is the clock. The sweep happened at 09:52, the entry by 09:58, and both targets were hit or missed by 10:30. Move the same setup to the 11:50 lunch macro and the range is usually too thin for a 5.5 dollar stop to make sense.
Common mistakes and limitations
Trading every macro. Eight windows a day is a tedious schedule, and it turns a filter into a full-time job. Two macros, chosen to match your instrument, is plenty.
Trusting the minute. Nothing in the market knows it is 09:50. The window works because participation is crowded then, and participation moves with market conditions. On a slow day in August the same window can be threadbare.
Using the macro as a direction call. The window says activity, never which way. Direction comes from the liquidity map you drew beforehand, and the map can be wrong.
Ignoring the spread. With a 5.5 dollar stop, a 0.3 dollar spread on gold is a charge of roughly 5 percent of risk before the trade starts. Thin windows carry a wider spread, and a wide spread makes a short-stop setup brittle.
Forgetting that it is discretionary. Whether a push counts as a sweep or a real breakout is a judgement call, and the ambiguity is built in. Two honest traders can look at the same window and reach opposite verdicts. A log of forty macro windows tells you more than any video. Be bluntly honest about hindsight, too. A macro you can only see afterwards, on a stale chart, is not one you can trade.
Macros inside a prop-firm evaluation
A macro routine fits an evaluation account for one plain reason: it caps the number of decisions per day. Suppose a daily loss limit of 4 percent and a risk of 0.4 percent per attempt. Two macros and one attempt each means the worst day costs 0.8 percent, a fifth of the limit. A static total drawdown of 6 percent would take fifteen straight losses at that size, a streak a two-window routine seldom produces.
Pivex suits this rhythm. The daily loss limit starts fresh every morning, so a bad macro on Tuesday does not shrink Wednesday's room. The total drawdown is fixed rather than trailing, so a strong week does not raise the floor beneath you. There is no deadline on the evaluation and no minimum number of trading days. A trader can sit out a holiday week when the New York macros go stale. Scalping is allowed with no minimum hold, which matters because a macro entry often resolves in twenty minutes.
Next step: pick one macro, one instrument and one liquidity target, then record thirty windows before taking a single trade. When the record shows the sweep-and-reversal shape often enough to justify the alarm clock, size the routine against a daily loss limit you can read in advance. Pivex states its loss limits and its 80 percent reward split before you begin, and the one-time fee is refundable. The arithmetic above can therefore be done with actual figures before the first window opens.
Related guides: the four ICT kill zones and the core ICT trading strategy.
Before participating, review Pivex's current program rules and decide whether a simulated proprietary trading evaluation fits your experience and risk limits. Participation does not guarantee a reward, income, or any particular trading result.