ICT Weekly Profiles: How the Weekly High and Low Tend to Form

The daily bias tells you which way you are leaning today. Weekly profiles zoom out one level and ask where you are in the week. If the weekly low has probably formed already, buying dips has a different meaning on Wednesday than it does on Monday. ICT traders use a small set of weekly templates, called weekly profiles, to frame those expectations.

What it is

A weekly profile is a description of how the weekly candle tends to be built: on which day the high or low is likely to form and how the range expands afterward. It is the Power of Three applied to the week. On a bullish week, the candle opens, trades lower to make its low, rallies to its high and closes near it. The question is which day each part happens on.

The most commonly described profiles are:

Names and details differ between educators. Some separate the Monday low and Tuesday low versions, some add a Thursday expansion without a reversal, and some describe Friday reversals as their own profile. The shared idea is that the week tends to make one extreme early or midweek and the other extreme later.

Where news fits

Scheduled high-impact news often decides which profile appears. A central bank decision on Wednesday afternoon, or US jobs data on the first Friday of the month at 08:30 ET, can be the point where the weekly high or low forms. Before the release, price may consolidate; after it, the week may reverse or expand. That is one reason the consolidation and Thursday reversal profile often appears in weeks with major mid-to-late-week news. Check the Economic Calendar every Sunday.

Holiday weeks and weeks with very heavy news often produce seek-and-destroy behavior. Some traders simply reduce size or stop trading those weeks.

How to identify it

1. Set the weekly bias. On the weekly and daily charts, identify the likely draw on liquidity, such as the previous week high or low or a weekly fair value gap.
2. Mark the weekly open. Use the Sunday evening reopen in New York time, as described in opening prices and the Asian range.
3. List the week's news. Note which days carry high-impact releases.
4. Watch Monday and Tuesday. In a bullish week, a move below the weekly open into sell-side liquidity that then reverses is consistent with a classic low of the week.
5. Reassess on Wednesday. If no clear low has formed, the midweek reversal or a Thursday reversal becomes more likely.
6. Stop guessing once the range is clear. When both extremes seem to be in, shift to managing trades toward the target rather than hunting new reversals.

Worked example: a bullish EUR/USD week

All prices are illustrative.

• Weekly bias: bullish, with the previous week high at 1.0980 as the draw on liquidity.
• Previous week low: 1.0870.
• Weekly open (Sunday 18:00 ET): 1.0900.

The weekly low of 1.0862 formed on Tuesday and the high of 1.0985 on Thursday, a weekly range of 123 pips. The weekly candle opened at 1.0900 and closed at 1.0970, a body of 70 pips. This is the classic bullish profile with a Tuesday low.

How a trader might have used it. On Tuesday, after the sweep of the previous week low, price displaced back above 1.0880 and left a 1-hour fair value gap. A long at 1.0875 with a stop-loss at 1.0850, below the sweep low, risks 25 pips. A target at 1.0975, just under the previous week high, is 100 pips away, four times the risk.

On a $10,000 account risking 1% ($100), with a pip worth about $10 per standard lot, size = $100 ÷ (25 × $10) = 0.4 lots.

The profile did not make the trade. The bias, the sweep of a known level and the entry pattern did. The profile only explained why a Tuesday low below the weekly open was a reasonable place to expect the week's low.

The alternative. If Tuesday had kept falling and closed near its low, the trader would have waited. A Wednesday low followed by a rally would have fit the midweek reversal profile. A drop through 1.0850 with no reversal by Thursday would have suggested the bias itself was wrong.

How traders use it

• To time entries in the week. Buyers in a bullish week prefer to act early in the week, below the weekly open, rather than chase on Thursday.
• To set daily bias. If the weekly low seems to be in, later days lean toward the weekly target.
• To manage trades. Once the weekly target is reached, the remaining days are often treated as a time to take profit rather than add.
• To skip weeks. A seek-and-destroy pattern is a signal to trade smaller or not at all.

Common mistakes

• Forcing a profile. Many weeks fit none of the templates. Labeling them anyway leads to bad trades.
• Deciding the profile on Monday. The profile is usually clear only in hindsight or midweek.
• Ignoring news timing. A big release can turn a classic week into a reversal week in minutes.
• Using the wrong weekly open. Pick one reference time and stay consistent.
• Holding through a broken bias. If price closes well beyond your invalidation level, drop the weekly plan.

Summary

Weekly profiles describe how the weekly candle tends to form: an early low or high in classic weeks, a Wednesday turn in midweek reversals, a Thursday reversal after consolidation, or two-sided chop in seek-and-destroy weeks. Use them with a weekly bias, the weekly open and the news calendar to decide when in the week an entry makes most sense. They are templates, not forecasts, so define invalidation and keep risk per trade small.