ICT CBDR — The Central Bank Dealers Range That Projects the Day's High and Low

What would it do for your trading if, the evening before, you could draw the levels where tomorrow's high and low of the day will most probably land? That's exactly what the CBDR — the Central Bank Dealers Range — is for. It's a quiet evening price range that ICT treats like a ruler: you lay its height off a few times above and below the range and get a map of deviations on which the day likes to end. The name refers to the hours when central-bank dealers book their positions — the etymology itself is debatable, but the mechanics of the measurement are fully concrete and testable. In this article we take it apart step by step, with all times in New York time (ET).

What Is the CBDR

The CBDR (Central Bank Dealers Range) is the price range formed between 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM New York time. These are the six quietest hours of the forex day: the US session is fading and the Asian one hasn't spun up yet. The market builds a narrow "central" rectangle — and it's precisely its height that becomes the unit of measure for the next day.

The key concept is the standard deviation in the ICT sense — simplified, not statistical: one deviation is simply the height of the CBDR laid off once above the range high (+1 SD) or once below its low (−1 SD). Two deviations are two heights, three — three. The result is a ladder of projections: +1, +2, +3 above the range and −1, −2, −3 below it. ICT's observation reads: the day's extremes land on these rungs far too often to be an accident.

Two quality conditions for the measurement. First, the range is measured by candle bodies, not wicks — ICT explicitly prefers bodies, because wicks inflate the height and ruin the projections. Second, the CBDR must be tight: under 40 pips, ideally 20–30. A wide range means a day when you put the model back on the shelf — "let price do what it wants," with scalps at most.

Hours and the Projection Ladder

All times are anchored to New York local time; around the DST changeovers in March and late October/early November the offset between New York and other regions shifts for a few weeks (the US and Europe change their clocks on different dates). A chart set to the "New York" timezone takes the problem off your plate.

How to read the projections in practice:

A sell day. The high of the day usually forms 1–2 standard deviations above the CBDR — rarely beyond 3. That's where London stages its false rally, collects liquidity and turns. The low of the day projects to around −3 deviations and most often only prints in the London Close killzone (10:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET).

A buy day. The mirror image: the low of the day 1–2 deviations below the CBDR (London's false dip), the high of the day around +2/+3 deviations, usually delivered in London Close.

Notice what follows from this: the CBDR doesn't tell you which way the day will go — that's the job of your D1/H4 bias. The CBDR tells you how far and from what level the day will probably play out. Bias plus projections together give you the complete frame: you know where to expect the manipulation (1–2 SD against the direction) and where to aim the target (2–3 SD with the direction).

How to Use the CBDR in Your Trading

The evening ritual looks like this:

1. After 8:00 PM ET, mark the CBDR. A rectangle drawn by candle bodies over the 2:00–8:00 PM ET window, on M15. The range completes hours before the London protraction, so you can prepare the whole measurement and the ladder calmly, well in advance.
2. Check the height. Over 40 pips? The model doesn't apply — don't trade the projections that day. 20–30 pips? Ideal.
3. Draw the ladder. Three deviations above and below the range. Fine-tune the levels on M5.
4. Set the day's bias on D1/H4 — bullish or bearish. A neutral day usually churns around the CBDR without commitment and offers no clean play.
5. Plan the scenario. A sell day: expect the high at +1/+2 SD (most often between midnight and 5:00 AM ET) and trade short toward −3 SD. A buy day — the mirror image.
6. Don't close everything before London Close. The day's second extreme statistically prints in the 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET window — taking profit too early regularly leaves most of the move on the table.
7. Execute the entry itself through the day model. The CBDR is a map, not a trigger: the sweep → structure shift → retrace-entry sequence is described by the intraday profiles, of which the CBDR is the first precondition.

Instruments: the model was born on the NQ and ES indices, and it works beautifully on GBP/USD, EUR/USD and gold. On BTC and ETH use the percentage version — swap the pip thresholds (40/20–30) for a comparison of the evening range against average daily volatility; the projection logic stays the same. The best days of the week are Tuesday and Wednesday, because that's when the extreme of the entire week most often forms — a topic we develop in the weekly profiles.

An Example With Numbers

Calculating the projections takes a minute, so let's calculate. EUR/USD, Tuesday. In the 2:00–8:00 PM ET window the candle bodies closed between 1.0850 and 1.0875 — the CBDR is 25 pips, comfortably within the ideal. The ladder above the range: +1 SD = 1.0900, +2 SD = 1.0925, +3 SD = 1.0950. Below the range: −1 SD = 1.0825, −2 SD = 1.0800, −3 SD = 1.0775.

The D1 bias is bearish. So the scenario for the day reads: London's early rally should die out between 1.0900 and 1.0925 (+1/+2 SD) — that's where you expect the high of the day and where you hunt the short after a structure shift. Primary target: around 1.0775 (−3 SD), with delivery probably only between 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM ET. During the London hours the market indeed pushes up to 1.0918, prints an MSS on M5 and grinds lower for the rest of the day; at 11:20 AM ET it touches 1.0781 and bounces. The projection didn't nail it to the pip — and it didn't have to. It was enough that, before the day even began, it told you roughly where that day would start and end.

Why does this work at all? The most honest answer: a tight evening range is a measure of how "calm" the market is before the day, and daily volatility is statistically a fairly stable multiple of that calm. The deviation projections are, at bottom, a simple model of the day's range anchored in a real measurement — which is why it requires a tight CBDR, and why it breaks when the range is wide or when the calendar drops a macro release into the day and changes the volatility regime. Treat the levels as zones, not lines; test them on your own market before you trust them.

Common Mistakes

• Measuring by wicks. The most common technical error. Wicks inflate the range height, and every projection inherits that error times three — at −3 SD a 5-pip mistake in the measurement grows into 15 pips in the target. Bodies, always.
• Trading a wide CBDR. A range over 40 pips isn't "more potential," it's an invalidated model. A day without a tight CBDR is traded differently, or not at all.
• Defaulting the target to +3 SD. Most days end their extreme at +1/+2 deviations. Whoever always aims for the third rung regularly watches the profit evaporate on the way back.
• No bias. The projections work in both directions — without a direction from the higher timeframe you don't know which side of the ladder is the manipulation and which is the target. The CBDR alone never answers "long or short," only "from where and how far."
• Forgetting about London Close. The model has two acts: the extreme printed during London and the one printed around London Close. Flattening everything by 6:00 AM ET means trading half the scenario.
• Confusing the CBDR with the Asian Range. They're adjacent but different ranges: the CBDR ends at 8:00 PM ET exactly where the Asian Range begins. In the day's profile they play separate roles — the CBDR provides the projection unit, Asia provides the liquidity to be swept.

The CBDR is the most "engineering-grade" piece of ICT's time puzzle: zero discretion, just a measurement and a ladder. It only shows its full power in combination, though — together with the overnight Asian range and the London protraction it assembles into the four intraday profiles, and the choice of the day of the week is guided by the weekly profiles. Start with a week of pure measurement: draw the evening range and the ladder, then check in the morning which rung the extreme landed on. The statistics you'll see will convince you faster than any article.

FAQ

Rafał — Krypto Bez Ściemy

Trader and founder of Strefa Tradingu. He’s been breaking crypto down on YouTube for years — no hype, no signals, with a focus on market structure and risk management.

kryptobezsciemy.plInstagramYouTubeKlub Zero