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AI Analyst
Connect your own ChatGPT to ask questions about your trades, journal and backtests. Only your data, and read-only unless you let it add and edit trades when you connect (e.g. from a screenshot of your platform).
ICT's shape for a full swing: down in steps to a key level, a sharp reversal, then back up through the same steps.
Illustration, not real market data.
What it is
The market maker buy model (MMBM) describes a whole swing. Price leaves an original consolidation and falls in steps, taking the sell stops under each small low (the sell side of the curve). At a higher-timeframe discount array it sweeps liquidity and turns sharply (the smart money reversal). It then rallies back in steps through the same consolidations it left on the way down (the buy side of the curve), towards where it started.
The sell model (MMSM) is the mirror image: up in steps to a premium array, a reversal, then back down. Sources describe it in three, four or five stages, but the shape is the same.
How to spot it
An original consolidation at the start of the move.
A stepped move away from it, with small ranges along the way.
A higher-timeframe zone (an order block, FVG or old low) at the far end, where price sweeps and shifts.
How to use it
Wait for the smart money reversal: the sweep and the market structure shift at the higher-timeframe zone.
Enter on the buy side of the curve, using each small consolidation from the way down as the next target, and the original consolidation as the final one.
A close back through the swept low cancels the model.
Common mistakes
Labelling the model halfway through the first leg, before the reversal has happened.
Expecting the second side to match the first exactly.