summary: the ICT opening retracement report tracks how often price retraces back to the midnight open (the open of the 12:00 AM ET candle) during the NY or London trading session. the report has 4 variants — standard, by weekday, by size, by fill time — and the data varies meaningfully by ticker, weekday, and opening displacement size. this article covers what each variant measures, how the size buckets work, how to find your specific day in the data, and how to pair it with the gap fill report for confluence.
what the report measures
the report is built around the midnight open — the open price of the 12:00 AM ET candle. that level becomes the reference for the day. the report then tracks whether price retraces back to it during your selected session.
there are 2 setups, defined by where the session opens relative to the midnight open:
"opened above" — session opens above the midnight open. the question becomes: how often does price retrace down to the midnight open during the session?
"opened below" — session opens below the midnight open. how often does price retrace up to the midnight open during the session?
whether it's an "opened above" or "opened below" day is determined by the session open price — 9:30 AM ET for NY, 3:00 AM ET for London — relative to the midnight open. pre-market action and overnight noise don't determine the setup.
retracements only count inside the session window. if price hits the midnight open at 7:00 AM ET on an NY-session report, that doesn't count — the retracement has to happen between 9:30 AM and 4:00 PM ET. same idea for London (between 3:00 AM and 8:00 AM ET). this is what makes the data reliable; you're not catching random overnight wicks.
NY and London sessions
the report supports 2 sessions:
NY session — retracement window is 9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET. the session open at 9:30 AM ET determines "opened above" vs "opened below."
London session — retracement window is 3:00 AM – 8:00 AM ET. the session open at 3:00 AM ET determines the setup.
switching sessions changes both the open price used to determine the setup and the window in which retracements count. a day that's "opened above" on the NY session might be "opened below" on the London session — different opening prices, different setups, different stats. don't compare numbers across sessions; treat them as separate analyses.
the 4 variants
standard
the headline number. tracks how often price retraces to the midnight open during your selected session, broken into the 2 setups (opened above, opened below). start here for the baseline probabilities on your ticker.
by weekday
same calculation as standard, but broken out by day of the week. this often reveals the real edge — different weekdays behave very differently.
examples we've seen in the data:
on NQ, Tuesday "opened below" has shown ~73% retracement — well above the standard 63%.
on ES, Thursday "opened below" runs hotter than the standard ~69%.
on YM, Wednesday tends to be the strongest day for retracements either direction.
conversely: a 50/50 weekday is a weekday to skip — the edge isn't there.
always look at by-weekday before making a trading decision. the standard number averages everything together; by-weekday is where you find the actually-tradeable slices.
by size
filters the analysis by the size of the move from the midnight open to the session open — i.e., how far price displaced overnight before the session started. each bucket represents a range of that displacement, and the report shows the retracement probability for each bucket.
this is what trips people up. the size buckets are NOT measuring the size of the retracement. they're measuring the size of the opening displacement (midnight open → session open). if today's NY session opened at 0.30% above the midnight open, today goes in the 0.20–0.39% bucket — and that row tells you how often days with that displacement size retraced.
the by-size variant matters most on instruments where the standard probability is borderline (e.g., GC at ~50%). the by-size data often reveals that some displacement sizes retrace consistently (e.g., 70%+) even when the overall average is a coin flip.
by fill time
narrows to only the days where price actually touched the midnight open (i.e., the retracement happened), then breaks those days down by whether the fill happened before or after a selected time. useful for understanding when retracements typically occur within the session — early, mid-session, or near the close — so you know how long to give a trade.
the size buckets (for the "by size" variant)
7 buckets, fixed across instruments. each one represents a range of opening displacement (midnight open → session open):
bucket | what it represents (% move from midnight open to session open) |
<0% | days where the session opened below the midnight open (opposite direction) |
0.1–0.19% | very small displacement |
0.20–0.39% | small displacement |
0.40–0.59% | modest displacement |
0.60–0.99% | large displacement |
1.0–1.49% | very large displacement |
≥1.5% | extreme displacement |
each bucket aggregates all historical days with opening displacement in that range — it's a cohort, not a single day.
finding your specific day in the by-size data
calculate the % move from the midnight open (12:00 AM ET candle open) to the session open price. find the bucket that contains that number, and read that row.
example: midnight open on NQ was 21,000. NY session opened at 21,063 — that's a +0.30% displacement. today lands in the 0.20–0.39% bucket. read that row to see how often days with that opening displacement retraced back to the midnight open during the NY session.
a common mistake: looking at the 0.60–0.99% row and assuming it represents your day. it only does if your day's opening displacement was 0.60–0.99%. otherwise that row is showing stats for a different cohort.
probabilities vary by ticker, weekday, and size — triangulate
the standard probabilities are not the same across instruments. some snapshots from recent 6-month windows (numbers shift over time as new data comes in):
ticker | opened above → retraces down | opened below → retraces up |
YM | ~63% | ~67% |
ES | ~58% | ~69% |
NQ | ~57% | ~63% |
GC | ~47% | ~50% |
BTC | ~64% | ~65% |
ETH | ~63% | ~50% |
a few read-throughs from that table:
ES, NQ, BTC are strong baseline candidates — both directions above 60%.
GC's standard probabilities are essentially coin flips, so the standard report alone isn't enough. drop into the by-size variant to find the displacement ranges where GC actually has an edge.
ETH only has an edge on the short side (opened above → retraces down) at the standard view. don't take ETH long-side trades based on the standard number.
the rule of thumb: aim for probabilities of 60% or higher for any setup you take. ideally 70% or higher. if the standard number is borderline, drop into by-weekday and by-size to find the higher-probability sub-cohort.
always pull the latest numbers from the report itself — the table above is a snapshot to give you a sense of magnitude, not a trade signal.
pairing with gap fill for confluence
the ICT opening retracement and the gap fill report often target the same level — and when they do, you've got two independent statistical edges pointing at the same price.
how it works:
gap fill target = the previous session's close.
ICT opening retracement target = the midnight open.
on most days these are different levels. but when they line up — when yesterday's close and the midnight open are at the same price — both reports point at that level, and the probability that price visits it is structurally higher than either signal alone.
a third level worth checking: the previous day's high or low (outside days report). when 3 reports — gap fill, ICT, and outside days — all agree on a level, you have very strong confluence.
the report vs. the TradingView indicator
these are 2 separate things and people sometimes mix them up:
the report (this article) — the data and stats on edgeful. tells you how often retracements have happened historically and lets you slice by weekday, size, and fill time.
the ICT opening retracement TradingView indicator — plots the midnight open line on your chart automatically every day so you have the level visualized while you trade. accessed through the invite-only scripts in TradingView once your edgeful TradingView username is linked.
use them together: the report tells you whether the setup has an edge today; the indicator shows you the level on your chart so you can manage entries and exits around it. for indicator setup and access troubleshooting, see TradingView indicators: access, updates, and troubleshooting.
common confusions
"my retracement was 0.3% but I'm looking at the 0.60–0.99% bucket" — the by-size buckets aren't retracement sizes. they're opening displacement sizes (midnight open → session open). find the bucket that contains your day's opening displacement, not your retracement size.
"why don't the by-size numbers add up to the standard?" — the standard is one combined probability across all opening displacements. by-size splits that same data into displacement buckets, so each row is a sub-cohort. the standard is roughly the volume-weighted average of the rows.
"the stats I'm seeing don't match what's in this article" — the numbers in the report are rolling. the percentages shift as new data comes in, and they look different on different lookback windows. always trust the report itself, not example numbers from articles.
"price hit the midnight open during pre-market — does that count?" — no. only retracements during the session window count (9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET for NY, 3:00 AM – 8:00 AM ET for London).
"do I have to use the NY session?" — no, you can also use the London session. the report's framework (midnight open as reference, session window as the retracement timer) is fixed; only those 2 session options match the ICT framework as defined.
"does this work on stocks?" — not really. stocks only trade 9:30 AM – 4:00 PM ET, so there's no meaningful "midnight open" with real liquidity. the report is built for 24-hour markets — futures, forex, crypto.
"'invalid configuration' error" — your reference time is set after the session open. set it to a time before the session start and the error clears. (also covered in sessions overview.)
related articles
→ sessions overview — how sessions, time zones, and reference closes work across reports
→ TradingView indicators: access, updates, and troubleshooting — the ICT opening retracement TradingView indicator (separate from this report)