ICT Insight™
🧠 Killzones – Understanding Key Sessions #
📌 Definition #
Killzones are specific time windows during the trading day when institutional trading activity peaks. These are periods of concentrated liquidity, where significant price movements are most likely to occur.
Based on Smart Money behavior, these sessions help traders detect institutional intentions, identify areas of accumulated liquidity, and prepare structured setups.
🔍 Why Are These Times Important? #
These key sessions concentrate the majority of institutional flow. They are the moments when:
- Liquidity is actively shifting
- Market intentions become visible
- ICT setups are most likely to appear
Understanding Killzones means aligning yourself with the institutional rhythm of the market.
🧠 Killzones & SMT (Smart Money Tool) #
The Asian Session plays a crucial role in spotting SMT divergences:
- AH (Asian High) and AL (Asian Low) often serve as shared reference levels across multiple assets
- A divergence appears when one asset takes its AH/AL and the other doesn’t — signaling a liquidity imbalance — and highlighting a potential high-probability trading opportunity.
👉 Mastering the Asian session helps you master the foundations of intermarket divergence analysis.
⏱ The Importance of Precise Timing #
Many indicators misplace Killzones due to:
- Daylight saving changes (UTC-5 ↔ UTC-4)
- Broker platforms often use local timezones that don’t match institutional sessions
This leads to shifted zones and misleading analysis.
💡 ICT Tip: Always refer to New York time (not your broker’s timezone) for true institutional session alignment.
