NWOG and NDOG explained: ICT's opening gaps

Why opening gaps matter

Index futures like NQ and ES trade almost around the clock, but not quite. Every weekday they stop at 17:00 New York time and reopen at 18:00. On Friday they stop at 17:00 and stay closed until Sunday at 18:00. When trading resumes, the first price is often not where the last one was. The space between the two is an opening gap.

No trade happened anywhere inside that space. ICT calls it a true liquidity void for that reason, and contrasts it with a fair value gap, where some trading did happen during a fast candle. He treats opening gaps as a kind of fair value that the market keeps referring back to, and he ranks them among the more important levels on his chart, in his 2024 lessons even above ordinary fair value gaps.

They also help you read the week. In his 2023 lessons, price that keeps returning to the current weekly gap signals a range-bound market, where small, quick trades suit better. Price that leaves the gap sharply and does not come back signals a trend.

When the gaps form

• NDOG (new day opening gap): from the 17:00 close to the 18:00 reopen, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Each one belongs to the next trading day.
• NWOG (new week opening gap): from Friday’s 17:00 close to Sunday’s 18:00 open. There is no NDOG on Friday evening; the weekend gap takes its place.
• The opening range gap (ORG): a third gap ICT teaches, between the previous day’s regular session close and the 09:30 stock market open. You see it on a regular trading hours chart, not the overnight one.

The gap can open higher or lower. If Sunday opens above Friday’s close, Friday’s close is the gap’s low; if it opens below, Friday’s close is the high.

How to mark an opening gap, step by step

1. Use a one-minute or five-minute chart. ICT warns against the daily chart: its bars use the exchange’s settlement price, which is not the last traded price before the pause.
2. Find the close. Take the closing price of the last candle before 17:00 (on a one-minute chart, the 16:59 candle).
3. Find the reopen. Take the opening price of the first candle at 18:00.
4. Draw the box and its midpoint. Draw a box between the two prices and a line halfway: the CE. ICT also marks the quarter levels inside the gap.
5. Label it and extend it right. Write the type and the date on it (“NWOG 12 Oct”) and carry it forward. A gap does not stop mattering the first time price touches it.

An NQ example, step by step

1. Friday’s close: NQ closes the week at 24,946.25 just before 17:00.
2. Sunday’s open: trading reopens at 18:00 at 24,981.75, 35.5 points higher. The new week opening gap runs from 24,946.25 to 24,981.75, and its CE is 24,964.00.
3. The return: price rallies to 25,021.50 on Sunday evening, then sinks back into the gap after midnight. The 01:00 candle wicks to 24,962.75, just under the CE, but closes at 24,979.50 in the gap’s upper half. The bodies never closed below the midpoint.
4. The reaction: from there price climbs, takes out the Sunday high (25,021.50) at 04:00 and reaches 25,036.25.

On another week the same gap could fail: bodies close below the CE, then below Friday’s close, and the gap turns into a ceiling instead of a floor. The levels are the same; what price does at them is what you read.

How traders use them

• As a target. ICT often names an open gap, or its CE, as where price is drawn next. A gap above price can be the target of a long; one below, the target of a short.
• As support or resistance. When price returns to a gap, he watches the bodies around the CE. Bodies holding above it lean bullish; bodies that cannot get back above it lean bearish.
• As a frame for stops. In some of his trades the stop sits beyond the gap’s CE or edge.

ICT is clear that the gaps are not meant to be traded alone. They support an idea you already have from other levels, such as an old high or low (see liquidity sweep) or a fair value gap. The weekly gap carries more weight than the daily one when you are aiming for a larger move. ICT himself has aimed a silver bullet trade at the midpoint of an open weekly gap.

Where ICT’s explanations differ over the years

• How many daily gaps to keep. In a May 2023 lesson he uses only the week’s first meaningful NDOG, carries it through the week and drops it when the week closes. In August 2024 he gives daily gaps a life of five days and keeps the last five on the chart.
• How many weekly gaps to keep. In March 2023 he asks for at least four NWOGs, preferring five; two months later he looks back up to 60 days for older ones. In 2024 he describes a life of five weeks.
• Which close. In a September 2024 lesson he adds a second version of the daily gap, measured from the 16:14 settlement candle instead of the 17:00 close, says both work, and uses it when the 17:00 version shows no gap.
• Small gaps. In 2023 he skips a daily gap that is only a tick or two wide and prefers more than one point. In 2024 he marks the CE of a daily gap only when it is over 20 points and estimates it by eye otherwise.

None of these is wrong; they are different working rules. Pick one, write it down and stay with it long enough to judge it.

Common mistakes

• Reading the gap from the daily chart.

  The daily bar uses the settlement price. Take the last price before 17:00 and the first at 18:00 from a one- or five-minute chart.

• Deleting a gap after the first touch.

  ICT keeps opening gaps on the chart for days or weeks and expects price to come back to their high, CE and low more than once.

• Expecting every gap to fill completely.

  A gap may only be half filled, or left behind in a trend. The CE is often the more useful level than the far edge.

• Trading the gap on its own.

  Use it to support a reason you already have: a swept high or low, a fair value gap, the time of day.

• Mixing gaps up on a busy chart.

  Label each one with its type and date, and keep the same colour for each type, as ICT asks his students to do.

How to journal opening gaps in daqverse