Does the ICT Asia session liquidity sweep work? We backtested it

It did not pass. The best-faith version beat 0 of 200 of 200 copies placed at random times, made -21.6% a year before costs and -48.1% after. In our earlier study, 0 of 1,057 liquidity-sweep rules survived the correction for multiple tests.

What people say

ICT and smart money content is the biggest single cluster on the trading subreddits right now. The session version goes like this: the Asia session builds a range, London runs the stops above or below it, and once price closes back inside you trade the reversal. The stop goes past the sweep wick, the target is twice the risk, and the stop moves to break-even at 1R.

• "Step 3: Mark out Asia high/low + London high/low" (r/Daytrading post, 13 Sep 2026)
• "SL to structural low/high, TP at 2R." (same post)
• "B/E after 1R. Full TP at 2R." (same post)

240 posts in five trading subreddits mentioned ICT, smart money or fair value gaps between 1 September and 5 October 2026, more than any other technique we counted. The post quoted above had 413 upvotes. On YouTube, Smart Risk's "Stop Trading Liquidity Sweeps Until You Watch This!" passed 97,000 views in seven weeks.

What we tested

The rule as posted runs on 1-minute and 5-minute futures charts and confirms with a change in structure. Our harness has hourly crypto, which trades through the Asia and London sessions, so we ran the session sweep there with the confirmation reduced to its mechanical core: a candle that pierces the Asia level and closes back inside. We wrote the rules, the costs and the pass bar down before running it. Three versions, plus the daily cousin from an earlier batch.

• Asia range swept in London, stop at the wick, break-even after 1R, 2R target. Mark the high and low of the Asia session (00:00 to 07:00 UTC). During London (07:00 to 12:00 UTC), if an hourly candle trades below the Asia low and closes back above it, buy at that close. Stop at that candle's low. Move the stop to break-even once price closes 1R up; take profit at 2R; close anything left at 20:00 UTC. Mirror image for a sweep of the Asia high. One trade a day.
• Same sweep, 2R target, no break-even step. The same sweep and stop, 2R target, no break-even step.
• Same sweep, no stop or target, out at 20:00 UTC. The same sweep entry with no stop or target, out at 20:00 UTC. This isolates the entry signal.
• Daily cousin: failed 20-day breakdown on ETFs (turtle soup, earlier run). The daily-chart cousin on 25 ETFs: price breaks a 20-day low and closes back above it the same day, hold 5 days. Reused from an earlier batch.

Results

One thing to know before reading the numbers. The benchmark is always fully invested, and from 2017 to early 2025 crypto rose a lot, so any rule that spends much of its time in cash trails it by a wide margin almost automatically. That is why we also compare each rule with 200 copies of itself: the same number of trades, the same holding times and the same costs, moved to random dates. Those copies are in the market exactly as much as the rule is, so they answer the fairer question: did the rule pick better moments than chance? The sweep versions sit in a trade only about 10% of the time, so the random copies matter most here.

The bottom chart is the one to look at. If a London sweep of the Asia range really marked a turning point, the rule would sit to the right of the grey bars. It sits to the left of all of them: buying the reclaim did worse than buying at random hours.

What costs do to it

Crypto pays 0.10% a side plus a measured slippage for each coin; US stocks and ETFs pay 0.05% a side. The cost is charged every time the position changes, including a flip from long to short. The sweep rules trade at most once a day per coin, 10,188 position changes in all. Costs moved the best-faith version from -21.6% to -48.1% a year. The rule was losing before any cost was charged.

The futures and forex version, from our earlier study

Earlier this month we tested 1,057 liquidity-concept rules (previous day and week high or low sweeps, session sweeps, equal highs and lows and more) on Nasdaq and S&P 500 futures, EURUSD and USDJPY, 29 US stocks, QQQ and crypto, 1,376,544 trades in all, each compared with random entries at the same time of day. 0 survived the correction for the number of tests.

On the index futures alone, 141 of 230 rules lost money before costs. The sweeps did no better than random entries at the same minute of the day.

• The TJR liquidity sweep and fair value gap model, tested

Why it did not hold up

The idea assumes that a sweep of an obvious level is a trap, and that price turns once the stops are taken. Sometimes it does. In this data, buying or selling right after a sweep did worse than the same trades placed at random hours, which is why the rule landed below its random copies.

The trade management did not change the picture. Break-even at 1R, a plain 2R target and no stop at all all ended near the same place (-48.1%, -48.5% and -47.7% a year). When the exits do not matter, the entry is the problem.

The posts that make this look easy are short streaks: a week of wins and a payout. Random entries produce streaks like that too, which is why a backtest over years and a comparison with chance are the test that counts.

What a beginner should take away

• Learn what a liquidity sweep is, because people will talk about it. Do not assume it predicts a reversal. In our tests it did not.
• If a rule's result barely changes when you change the stop and target, its entry has no edge to manage.
• Short winning streaks, including your own, are weak evidence. Compare them with random entries over the same days.

Try it yourself

The Backtest Lab works on daily bars and cannot mark Asia and London ranges, so it cannot run this rule. It can show you the daily version of the same instinct, buying after a drop: on SPY, set the entry to rsi(2) below 10 and the exit to price crosses above sma(5), then compare with holding SPY.

• Open the Backtest Lab with SPY loaded (free account)

The Lab tests one rule on one stock, fills at the next open and compares against holding that stock after costs, so its number will not match the basket results above.

• See a full worked example (free, no account)
• Start lesson 1 of the course (free)

A pass opens every course lesson, the full research tabs and more Lab runs on all 50 Lab stocks. It does not include trade signals or a system that wins.

• What a pass includes

General information only. It doesn't consider your objectives, finances or needs. Tickfloor holds no financial services licence and never places trades.

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• Every popular rule we tested

How we set the rules, costs and pass bar before running anything: the Tickfloor testing standard. The wider record is on the evidence page.