The Library

Price only does four things. Learn their names. Expansion. Price leaves a level fast, like it has somewhere to be. Retracement. It leans back into the move it just made. Reversal. It turns and runs the other way. Consolidation. It goes quiet and stacks orders on both sides. Every chart you will ever study is these four, in some order. This is where ICT opens the core study. So do we. Name the phase before you name anything else.

Watch one tape move through all four. Quiet first. Small candles in a tight box. Consolidation. Then a burst. Price leaves the box with intent. Expansion. It pauses and leans back into the move. Retracement. Another push, further this time. Same direction, more reach. Then the turn. Price runs back through where it came from. Reversal. Same chart, four chapters, one after another. Drop the needle and ask which chapter is playing.

Here is the part most people skip. Each phase points at something specific to look for. Expansion leaves a footprint near where it started. Retracement reaches back into the gaps the fast move left. Reversal starts where stops were resting, above old highs or below old lows. Consolidation stores orders on both edges, waiting for the break. Name the phase, and you know which reference to hunt. The phase is the map. The reference is the address.

The most common misread on any chart. Price pulls back, and someone calls the top. But a retracement lives inside the move. It leans back, and the structure holds. The last higher low is still standing. A reversal breaks the structure that built the move. One is a breath. The other is a new direction. Read the structure, not the feeling. Until the structure breaks, a pullback is just a pullback.