The ICT clock: sessions and killzones
Lesson 02 · 6 min read · By DT Terminal
Read the trading day in New York time: the killzones, the Asian range, the midnight open and the daylight-saving shift, as a filter you test.
Unlock the full lesson in the app
Worked examples, the quiz and the interactive tools are in the app. Free account.
Why ICT keeps New York time
ICT puts the whole day on one clock: New York local time. Every ICT time in this course is New York time.
The day's anchor is the midnight open: the opening price of the 00:00 New York candle. ICT treats it as the start of the "true day" and compares later prices with it.
Your platform probably shows a different time zone. Convert from New York time each day rather than once, for the reason in the daylight saving chapter.
Go deeper
Day 5, Market sessions showed why volume follows the financial centres.
The Sessions tab on DT Terminal's Calculators page shows the sessions against your own time, which is a quick way to check where New York's clock sits in your day.
The killzones
Killzones are the windows of the New York day when ICT looks for setups. They bracket the London open, the New York open and the London close. Sources disagree by up to an hour, so this course uses one set and you test your own.
| Window | New York time | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Asian range | 20:00 to 00:00 | Mark its high and low. Some sources use 19:00 to 23:00 or 20:00 to 22:00 |
| London open killzone | 02:00 to 05:00 | Brackets the London open |
| New York open killzone | 07:00 to 10:00 | For FX. Index traders often use 08:30 to 11:00, to take in the 08:30 data and the 09:30 cash open |
| London close killzone | 10:00 to 12:00 | Brackets the end of the London day |
| New York lunch | 12:00 to 13:30 | Usually avoided |
| New York PM session | 13:30 to 16:00 | The afternoon session |
The 08:30 New York data releases fall inside the New York killzone, one reason that window is busy. Day 6, Key news events covers how to handle them.
The daylight saving trap
New York is on UTC-4 from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November, UTC-5 otherwise. The UK changes on different Sundays, so for a few weeks London is 4 hours ahead of New York, not 5.
| 2026 | New York | London | London open in NY | London KZ in UTC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan to 7 Mar | UTC-5 | UTC+0 | 03:00 | 07:00 to 10:00 |
| 8 Mar to 28 Mar | UTC-4 | UTC+0 | 04:00 | 06:00 to 09:00 |
| 29 Mar to 24 Oct | UTC-4 | UTC+1 | 03:00 | 06:00 to 09:00 |
| 25 Oct to 31 Oct | UTC-4 | UTC+0 | 04:00 | 06:00 to 09:00 |
| 1 Nov to 31 Dec | UTC-5 | UTC+0 | 03:00 | 07:00 to 10:00 |
In those weeks (8 Mar to 28 Mar and 25 Oct to 31 Oct) the London open lands at 04:00 New York time, an hour later than usual. The killzone stays at 02:00 to 05:00.
The Asian range and the midnight open
The Asian range is the high and low price prints between 20:00 and 00:00 New York time. ICT traders mark it before London opens, along with the midnight open, as reference levels for the session ahead.
Whatever the London killzone then does with the range falls into one of three cases. Record which one, every day. These are outcomes to log, not predictions.
Asian range
What the London killzone did with it
- Asian session
- Range high and low
- Liquidity sweep
Asian high
London trades up to the high
Asian low
London trades down to the low
Liquidity sweep and reverse
trades through, closes back, runs the other way
Break and run
closes beyond and keeps going
Stays inside
no break: nothing to judge
A filter, not a signal
FX activity and volatility follow strong, repeatable daily patterns tied to the regional opens and data releases, and London is the largest FX centre. That supports looking for setups when the market is active. It does not show any hour is an edge, and no peer reviewed study tests ICT's killzones.
So a killzone is a filter: it says when to look, never why to trade. No setup by your written rules means no trade.
Worked example
Example 01: One London killzone, start to finish
The worked example, with every number walked through, is in the app.
Sources
The daily patterns in FX activity and volatility: Andersen and Bollerslev, 1998. London as the largest FX centre: BIS Triennial Survey, 2022.
Test your own window
These killzones are a starting point. Your own trades answer whether London or New York suits you, and broker-synced trades carry their real open time, a record you cannot edit afterwards.
Compare your windows in Analytics
Write your window as a rule
Go deeper
Tags help too: tag each trade London KZ, NY KZ or Outside when you log it, then filter the Trade Log by each tag.
Check yourself
Quick review · 0 of 0
Five questions, one for each idea in this lesson.