What Is An Imbalance, Fair Value Gap (ICT) or Inefficiency?
What Is An Imbalance, Fair Value Gap (ICT on YouTube) and/or inefficiency in price (all the same thing)
An imbalance can be defined as an imbalance between buyers and sellers. A bullish imbalance has more buyers behind it and a bearish imbalance has more sellers behind it. When you see an impulsive move to the upside or downside in the market with no wicks overlapping full-bodied candles, this is where imbalances in the market are formed. They can happen on all time frames, but easier to trade on higher ones, especially after high impact news happen.
When looking for an imbalance in the market, simply look for any candle which has a full body and look for the part of the candle that isn’t overlapped by the previous and next candles’ wicks. This signifies an imbalance in the market because there were few transactions going on between buyers and sellers. (On chart) we can see how sellers completely overpowered buyers. Wicks usually represent price oscillating up and down within the time it takes to print that candle, showing that price is efficient. So when you see a full-bodied candle with no wicks overlapping it, you’ve identified a clear imbalance in price.
Price Imbalance Is An Imbalance Between Buyers & Sellers
The reason we call it an imbalance is not only because it’s an imbalance between buyers and sellers, but because there is literally an imbalance in the market. If we have an impulsive move to the upside it’s because there are no sellers to absorb the buying pressure of the bulls (bid up). This means that there is no resistance from sellers to stop the buyers from pushing the price up extremely rapidly. On the other hand, if we have an impulsive move to the downside it’s because there are no buyers to absorb the selling pressure of the bears (bid down). This means that there is no resistance from buyers to stop the sellers from pushing the price down extremely rapidly.
Imbalances in the market can also be viewed as inefficiency in price, telling us may be banks or financial institutions involved in the aggressive movement of price we’re seeing. Again, if we think about it, most impulsive moves and imbalances in the market happen as a result of there being no liquidity in the form of orders to stop price from being met with resistance and slowing down. In an efficient market, we typically see price trade in a range of fair value for that asset where sellers sell when they perceive the price of the asset is high (premium), and buyers buy when they perceive the price as low (discount).
By doing this, it creates a high momentum move and imbalance in the market that is much like a gap in price. In some cases, this price manipulation may be a part of an institution’s plan to generate liquidity, and therefore we may see price seek to “fill” that imbalance or close that gap before pushing back into the same direction that price impulse from.
Naturally, most imbalances in the market represent inefficiency in price, and therefore there is usually a good chance that price will return to fill that imbalance (in order to make price efficient again). While this isn’t always the case (price can just continue to push away from imbalances that form in the market), we can sometimes see price seek to mitigate the imbalance, or the zone that the imbalance originated from, and therefore look to take a trade in the direction of the imbalance in order to profit off of price moving in that direction to mitigate it! Trade Smarter not Harder.
An imbalance can be defined as an imbalance between buyers and sellers. A bullish imbalance has more buyers behind it and a bearish imbalance has more sellers behind it. When you see an impulsive move to the upside or downside in the market with no wicks overlapping full-bodied candles, this is where imbalances in the market are formed. They can happen on all time frames, but easier to trade on higher ones, especially after high impact news happen.
When looking for an imbalance in the market, simply look for any candle which has a full body and look for the part of the candle that isn’t overlapped by the previous and next candles’ wicks. This signifies an imbalance in the market because there were few transactions going on between buyers and sellers. (On chart) we can see how sellers completely overpowered buyers. Wicks usually represent price oscillating up and down within the time it takes to print that candle, showing that price is efficient. So when you see a full-bodied candle with no wicks overlapping it, you’ve identified a clear imbalance in price.
Price Imbalance Is An Imbalance Between Buyers & Sellers
The reason we call it an imbalance is not only because it’s an imbalance between buyers and sellers, but because there is literally an imbalance in the market. If we have an impulsive move to the upside it’s because there are no sellers to absorb the buying pressure of the bulls (bid up). This means that there is no resistance from sellers to stop the buyers from pushing the price up extremely rapidly. On the other hand, if we have an impulsive move to the downside it’s because there are no buyers to absorb the selling pressure of the bears (bid down). This means that there is no resistance from buyers to stop the sellers from pushing the price down extremely rapidly.
Imbalances in the market can also be viewed as inefficiency in price, telling us may be banks or financial institutions involved in the aggressive movement of price we’re seeing. Again, if we think about it, most impulsive moves and imbalances in the market happen as a result of there being no liquidity in the form of orders to stop price from being met with resistance and slowing down. In an efficient market, we typically see price trade in a range of fair value for that asset where sellers sell when they perceive the price of the asset is high (premium), and buyers buy when they perceive the price as low (discount).
By doing this, it creates a high momentum move and imbalance in the market that is much like a gap in price. In some cases, this price manipulation may be a part of an institution’s plan to generate liquidity, and therefore we may see price seek to “fill” that imbalance or close that gap before pushing back into the same direction that price impulse from.
Naturally, most imbalances in the market represent inefficiency in price, and therefore there is usually a good chance that price will return to fill that imbalance (in order to make price efficient again). While this isn’t always the case (price can just continue to push away from imbalances that form in the market), we can sometimes see price seek to mitigate the imbalance, or the zone that the imbalance originated from, and therefore look to take a trade in the direction of the imbalance in order to profit off of price moving in that direction to mitigate it! Trade Smarter not Harder.