Ultimate Guide to Master CISDCISD stands for Consolidation, Inducement, Stop Hunt, Displacement. It’s a simple, repeatable structure that shows how smart money sets up traps in the market to grab liquidity and then make a clean move in the opposite direction.
If you’re serious about trading the ICT style, this is one of the most useful frameworks to learn. It helps you avoid chasing bad breakouts and teaches you to wait for real setups that come after stop hunts and proper market structure shifts.
But there’s one rule that’s non-negotiable — a CISD setup is only valid after a liquidity sweep. If the market hasn’t taken out a clear high or low where stops are sitting, then the rest of the model doesn’t mean anything. No sweep, no trade.
1. Start With the Liquidity Sweep
Everything begins with the liquidity grab. If price hasn’t taken out a high or low where stops are stacked, you should walk away from the setup. Don’t try to front-run a move before smart money has done its job.
The liquidity sweep is what gives the rest of the move power. That’s when price runs through obvious levels, swing highs, swing lows, the Asian range, New York session highs or lows and hits stop losses. Those stops give smart money fuel to enter in the opposite direction.
When you’re watching the market, ask yourself this:
"Who just got stopped out?"
If you can’t answer that, then it’s not a sweep. And if it’s not a sweep, it’s not a CISD.
2. Consolidation — Where Liquidity Builds
This is the first part of the structure. Price starts to move sideways in a tight range, usually during Asian session or during parts of London where volume is low. It can last for hours or even across sessions.
The key here is to understand what’s happening. Traders are placing buys above the highs and sells below the lows. Liquidity is building on both sides. It’s a trap being set. Retail traders are expecting a breakout, but smart money is waiting to use that breakout to their advantage.
Your job in this phase is to identify the range and mark out the highs and lows. That’s where stops will be sitting. You’re not looking to trade during this phase. You’re watching and planning
3. Inducement (sweep)— Fake Break to Trap Traders
After the range is set, price gives a small push out of the range just enough to get people to commit. This is the inducement. It’s the bait.
Let’s say the range high is being tested. Price breaks just above it, traders think it’s a breakout, and they go long. Maybe it holds for a couple of minutes, even gives a small push in their favor. But then it rolls over. That’s the trap. Now those traders are caught, and their stops are sitting below.
Sometimes the inducement comes before the real sweep. Other times, the inducement is the sweep. What matters is that traders have been lured into bad positions and their stops are exposed.
As a trader, your job is not to take the bait. Watch how price reacts to these fake moves. Often, they come with weak volume or are followed by an immediate sharp reversal.
4. Stop Hunt — The Sweep That Validates the Setup
This is where the real move starts to form. Price aggressively runs through the level that holds liquidity, usually below the low or above the high you marked earlier.
This is when smart money takes out the traders who were induced during the fake move. Their stops get hit, and that gives institutions the volume they need to get into the opposite side.
You should be actively watching for a reaction here. Do you see rejection? Does the candle close with a strong wick? Are there signs of absorption or order flow flipping?
This is your validation point. Once price sweeps liquidity and starts to reject the level, that’s your cue to get ready for the next part, the actual shift.
5. Displacement — The Real Move Begins
Once the sweep happens, price doesn’t just drift, it snaps back hard. This is called displacement.
Displacement is a sharp, clean move in the opposite direction of the stop hunt. This is when market structure breaks, momentum shifts, and a fair value gap usually forms.
This is your confirmation that the setup is live. The sweep happened, smart money entered, and now the market is moving with intent.
You don’t want to chase the displacement candle itself. Instead, wait for the retrace. Look for price to come back into the fair value gap or an order block left behind by the impulse. That’s your entry point.
Make sure:
Structure is broken in your direction
The move away is impulsive, not choppy
You’re not forcing an entry on a weak pullback
This is the only part of CISD where you actually take the trade. Everything else is just setup.
How to Manage Risk and Entries
Once you’ve got a valid setup, here’s how to manage it:
Entry: Enter on the CISD or wait for the pullback into the fair value gap or order block. Enter on the reaction or confirmation.
Stop Loss: Place it just past the low or high that got swept. If you’re long, your stop goes below the stop hunt candle. If you’re short, it goes above.
Take Profit: Target the next liquidity level. That could be the other side of the range, a swing high or low, or an inefficiency in price.
You can scale out if price approaches a session high or low, or hold for a full range expansion depending on the session.
Final Thoughts
The CISD model works because it’s built on how the market actually moves, not indicators, not random patterns, but liquidity.
Don’t jump in early. Don’t guess. Wait for the sweep. Wait for the displacement. That’s where the edge is.
Once you get used to watching this play out in real time, you’ll start to see it everywhere. It’s in Forex, crypto, indices, any market that runs on liquidity.
Stick to the rules. Let the model do its job. And remember: no sweep, no setup!
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