Learn Time Kill Zones — When Setups Actually Count
Kill Zones — When Setups Actually Count
The few windows when institutions are active: Asia 20:00-00:00, London 02:00-05:00, NY AM 08:30-11:00, NY PM 13:30-16:00 (NY time).
Kill zones are the recurring windows, in New York time, when real institutional flow moves the market: the Asia range builds 20:00-00:00, London runs 02:00-05:00, the New York morning session 08:30-11:00, and the New York afternoon 13:30-16:00.
ICT doctrine is time-first: the same chart pattern is trusted inside a kill zone and treated as a trap outside one.
Each session’s running high and low become liquidity levels for the next — the Asia range extremes are the classic sweep targets for London’s open.
How to trade it
- Restrict entries to your chosen kill zone(s) and let everything outside them pass.
- Mark each completed session’s high/low and watch for the next session to raid them.
- Match the asset to the session — FX and indices are most honest in London and NY AM.
Pitfalls
- Taking a "perfect" setup in dead hours — off-window patterns are how good traders get chopped up.
- Ignoring daylight saving: sessions are New York wall-clock time, not fixed UTC offsets.
See Kill Zones — When Setups Actually Count detected live.
The workstation marks it on the chart the moment it prints.