Unicorn

What it measures

The Unicorn is the meeting of two ICT zones: a breaker and a matching FVG that overlap. The breaker is a block that fails and turns into support (in the bullish case; resistance in the bearish one): the last up candle before a drop that swept a low and that price then takes out to the upside. If the drop swept nothing, it’s a mitigation block and doesn’t count. Where the breaker and the FVG overlap sits the common zone, and that’s where the limit order waits.

The breaker and the FVG are concepts of ICT’s method; together, as the Unicorn, they are the extended definition used by those who trade ICT.

It’s a Pro plan indicator. It marks what has happened; it isn’t a recommendation or a buy or sell signal.

How it’s calculated

• The breaker: on a bullish break (a close above the last three-candle high), the failing drop — from the broken high to the low the leg starts from — has at its origin the last up candle before it fell. Its whole range, wick included, is the breaker. It only counts if that drop swept the previous low. The bearish one is the reverse.
• The FVG: one from the leg that breaks, in the same direction, with its middle candle between the swept extreme and the breaking candle, overlapping the breaker by at least 1 tick (“Minimum overlap of the breaker and the FVG”). If there are several, the one that overlaps it most. It’s chosen when the candle after the breaking one closes, and the order is armed then, so it doesn’t repaint.
• Entry: a limit order on the common zone of the breaker and the FVG (“At the edge of the zone” by default; also “At the midpoint (CE)” or “At the other edge of the zone”, under Entry and exit › “Entry”).
• Stop: beyond the swept extreme, plus 1 tick (“Stop ticks beyond its level”). With “Stop” you can put it “Beyond the breaker”.
• Target: the nearest reference liquidity on the other side of the entry that hasn’t been taken yet: the previous day’s high and low (PDH, PDL) and the previous week’s (PWH, PWL), the highs and lows of the Asia, London, NY AM and NY PM sessions, equal highs and lows (EQH, EQL) and the 15-minute ones; also the chart’s own highs and lows (BSL, SSL), which only count as a target. You choose them under Liquidity. With no liquidity in sight, it isn’t traded. With “Target” set to “Fixed R”, the target is worth 2 R by default.
• Hours: the order is placed inside a window, in New York time. By default, “Window 1”, from 8:30 to 11:00, and “Window 2”, from 2:00 to 5:00; “Window 3” (from 13:30 to 16:00) is off. The 2:00 to 5:00 one needs candles from those hours, that is, a chart with electronic trading hours (ETH). With “Only inside the windows” off, any hour counts.
• Which ones are traded: one at a time. While an order is placed or a trade is open, the others are discarded (“another in play”), and at most 1 is traded per window (from 1 to 5 under “Trades per window”). Mondays can be skipped with “Skip Mondays”.
• What cancels the order: the limit order waits at most 30 candles (“Candles the order stays open”); it’s cancelled when its window ends (with “Cancel the order when the window ends”, on by default) and it’s lost if price reaches the target without having entered (“ran off, no entry”).
• What is discarded: a stop less than 4 ticks from the entry (“Minimum risk”; “stop too close”) and whatever falls outside the windows (“out of hours”). “Minimum R to trade” is 0: no filter.
• If the target and the stop are both reached within one candle, there’s no way to know which came first: by default the order that platforms assume is used (“If the order within a candle is unknown”); it can also count as a loss or not count.
• Time frame: the pattern comes from the chart’s candles or, with “Time frame of the pattern”, from larger candles built from them. The order is always simulated with the chart’s candles, and 10 days are analyzed (“Days back”).

How to read it

• Two faint boxes with the texts “breaker” and “FVG”, in the color of their direction, and a light grey line called “sweep” at the swept extreme.
• The common zone is filled ice if bullish and pink if bearish.
• The entry line, in violet, starts on the candle where the order is placed. When price enters, the target box (ice) and the stop box (pink) appear; while the order waits, the target and the stop are dashed lines. Bullish ones are ice, bearish ones pink.
• The text on each setup says “Unicorn”, the direction, “breaker + FVG” and its state: “order placed”, “in progress”, the result in R, “not filled” or “ran off, no entry”. Turn it off with “Write the text of each setup”.
• With “Show the ones not traded” the discarded ones appear too, fainter and with the reason (“out of hours”, “another in play”…).
• A results panel in a corner summarizes the trades of the loaded period. A help box inside the indicator, bottom left, sums it up on the chart itself; turn it off under Help › “Show how to use it”.

Built-in strategies

What the indicator already has inside and can mark for you on the chart. They show what has happened; they are not recommendations.

Adding it to the chart

In the chart bar, Indicators ▾ › More Indicators…. You’ll find it in the ICT category. It’s a Pro plan indicator. How to add and adjust an indicator is in Indicators.

Settings

Open them with the ⚙ on its row in Indicators ▾. All times are New York time.