ICT kill zones explained, with times in New York

Why time matters

Price does not move evenly through the day. It moves most when big markets open and orders arrive: London in the early morning, New York a few hours later. In between, and late in the evening, it often drifts sideways.

ICT’s idea is simple. The market tends to make its key turning points inside a few windows of time. If you only look for trades in those windows, you skip most of the slow, choppy hours where setups fail. ICT puts time first: first when, then where.

The kill zone times

All times are New York time (ET), the clock ICT uses whatever your own time zone is.

ICT’s classic windows

• London open: 02:00–05:00. ICT calls 02:00–04:00 the sweet spot. On a trending day this window often makes the day’s high or low.
• New York open: 07:00–10:00 (07:00–09:00 in his early forex lessons). It often continues what London started.
• London close: 10:00–12:00. European traders take profits, and price can pull back.
• Asia: the evening session. He uses it mostly for currencies traded in Asia; for most traders it is the quiet range the next sessions break out of.

ICT’s own times have shifted a little over the years and between markets: his forex lessons from 2016–2017 start New York at 07:00, while his index futures lessons focus on the stock market session from 09:30. When you read or watch other material, check which version it uses.

The windows daqverse uses

These are built for index futures like NQ and ES. The quiet bands (London lunch and the New York pre-market) are drawn on the day’s timeline but are never a trade’s kill zone. Asia starts the evening before its trading day: a trade at 21:00 on Sunday belongs to Monday, as on the futures exchange.

An NQ example, step by step

1. Asia (20:00–00:00): NQ trades in a narrow range between about 24,903 and 24,938. Nothing to do yet; note the range’s high and low.
2. London (02:00–05:00): price drops under the Asia low (24,903.25) to 24,855.25, then turns up. That dip takes out the stop orders under the Asia range and becomes the low of the day.
3. Between the windows: price drifts up slowly. An ICT trader waits.
4. New York AM (from 09:30): volume arrives and NQ rallies to 25,046.75, the high of the day, by 11:00.
5. Afternoon: price pulls back and ranges. Both of the day’s turning points formed inside a kill zone.

Not every day looks like this. Many days are slow, and some make their high or low outside the windows. The point of the kill zones is to know where to focus, not to predict.

Kill zones in your own time zone

Always start from New York time and convert. For most of the year London is five hours ahead of New York and Central Europe six. So the London window (02:00–05:00 New York) is 07:00–10:00 in London and 08:00–11:00 in Paris or Berlin, and New York’s 09:30 is 14:30 in London.

Watch the clock changes. The US moves its clocks on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November; Europe on the last Sunday of March and of October. In the weeks between, every window arrives one hour earlier on a European clock. The kill zone clock shows the windows live, in New York time and in yours.

Common mistakes

• Treating a kill zone as a price area.

  A kill zone is only time. It tells you when to look; the setup itself still needs a reason in price, like a swept high or low and a fair value gap.

• Trading every window, every day.

  ICT himself says less is more: pick one window (for most NQ traders, the New York morning) and learn it well before adding another.

• Converting the times the wrong way around daylight saving.

  Keep your plan in New York time and convert once a day, or let a tool do it. Most "wrong session" trades in a journal come from this.

• Forcing a trade because the window is open.

  An open kill zone is permission to look, not a signal. No setup, no trade.

How to journal kill zones in daqverse