Market Maker Buy Model (MMBM) — The Market Maker's Buying Scheme

Most ICT concepts describe one spot on the chart: a zone, a gap, a level. The Market Maker Buy Model describes something more — the entire route price travels from the moment smart money starts building a long position to the moment it hands it off at a profit. Whoever learns to read this schematic stops asking "where do I enter?" and starts asking "which phase of the cycle am I in?" — and that question saves you from the retail trader's most expensive mistake: buying exactly where the market maker is still gathering fuel for the drop. In this article we break the MMBM into its four phases and assemble them into a complete trade plan, with examples from BTC and ETH.

What Is the Market Maker Buy Model

The Market Maker Buy Model (MMBM) is a schematic of price delivery from a bullish PD Array zone to a bearish PD Array zone — from the level where institutions accumulate long positions to the level where they distribute them. If the term PD Array is new to you, start with the article on the PD Array Matrix — without it, the whole model will be a collection of empty names.

Visually, the MMBM resembles the letter "V" with a shelf on its left side: the market sits in a consolidation, then descends in a series of successively lower highs, reverses at a significant level, and rallies back through the entire distance it traveled — up above the starting point. That leg down is not accidental. It is a programmed part of the cycle: the decline builds the liquidity the rally will later consume. In ICT literature both halves of the schematic are described by the "smart money curve": the left side is the sell program (the sell side of the curve), the bottom is accumulation, the right side is the buy program (the buy side of the curve).

Before you label any structure an MMBM, three preconditions must be met:

1. The higher-timeframe structure is bullish — D1/H4 are printing higher highs and higher lows, or have just completed a correction within an uptrend.
2. The nearest draw on liquidity points up — a clear pool hangs above the market: old highs, equal highs, an unfilled higher-timeframe gap.
3. A sell program is running on the lower timeframe — price is descending toward a higher-timeframe bullish PD Array zone.

If any of these conditions is not met — it is not an MMBM, and you are better off standing aside.

How to Recognize the Four Phases of the MMBM

Phase 1 — Original Consolidation. The starting point of the cycle: price circles in a range between two boundaries. Smart money has not declared a direction yet, and both sides of the range accumulate orders. Memorize the boundaries of this consolidation — its upper edge will later become one of the targets of the entire model.

Phase 2 — Engineering Liquidity. Price drops out of the consolidation and descends in a series of successively lower highs. Each of those highs is future fuel: above them accumulate the stop losses of sellers and the buy stops of traders waiting for a "breakout". This is the manipulation phase — it looks like a healthy downtrend, and that is exactly why it works. The retail trader sees a shorting opportunity here; the market maker sees a liquidity production line.

Phase 3 — Smart Money Reversal. The decline ends not "somewhere", but at a specific address: a higher-timeframe bullish PD Array zone — an Order Block, a Fair Value Gap or a breaker on H4/D1. This is where institutional buy orders get filled. The strongest reversals print where the PD Array zone coincides with a sweep of the liquidity below the recent low — the sweep clears out the last weak hands, the zone catches the institutional entry.

Phase 4 — Liquidity Hunt. Price turns up and, one by one, consumes everything phase two built: every lower high gets broken, the buy stops above them add fuel, until the rally reaches the original consolidation and beyond it — to the higher-timeframe liquidity target. This is the distribution phase: smart money hands the positions bought at the bottom to those who "finally believed" in the rally.

The skill genuinely worth practicing is naming the current phase in real time. Open H1 on BTC, find the last clear rally and rewind: where did it launch from? Did the decline before it print lower highs? Where was the consolidation? The schematic repeats on charts with surprising regularity — from M15 to D1.

How to Trade the MMBM Step by Step

Step 1 — confirm the context. Bullish D1/H4 structure and a liquidity target above the market. Without these, there is no model.

Step 2 — define the reversal address. Mark the higher-timeframe bullish PD Array zone that price is descending toward. That is your "where". You are not forecasting the bottom — you wait for price to reach the level on its own.

Step 3 — watch the decline. The engineering liquidity phase should print lower highs. Note them down: they are the future partial targets of your position.

Step 4 — wait for two confirmations at the zone. When price taps the bullish zone, drop to M15/M5 and watch for: (1) a Market Structure Shift to the upside — a break of the last short-term high with momentum, (2) a bullish SMT divergence on a correlated market — e.g. BTC makes a lower low while ETH defends a higher one. Only both together give the green light.

Step 5 — the entry. After the MSS, price usually pulls back below the breakout level. You go long on the retest of the FVG left behind by the MSS move — you do not chase the breakout candle.

Step 6 — the stop loss. Below the recent low (the one preceding the MSS), with a clear buffer. In crypto, the equivalent of the forex "10–20 pips" is a buffer on the order of a fraction of ATR — beyond the reach of a single wick. A close below that low invalidates the entire thesis of the model.

Step 7 — targets in stages. The MMBM's biggest edge: the targets are written into the schematic in advance. Take profits in parts at the successive highs from the engineering liquidity phase, then at the upper edge of the original consolidation, and finally at the higher-timeframe liquidity target. To project further levels, some traders stretch a Fibonacci over the reversal leg (from the Smart Money Reversal low to the MSS high) and aim at the -1, -1.5, -2 extensions. After the first target, move the stop to break even and let the rest of the position ride.

Example: BTC, after a week of gains on D1, enters a consolidation on H1. It drops out through the bottom and descends for two sessions, printing three successively lower highs, until it reaches a bullish H4 FVG in the discount zone. A sweep below the local low, then on M15 a break of the last high with momentum, while ETH simultaneously defends a higher low — bullish SMT. Long from the M15 FVG retest, stop below the sweep low. Price then collects the three highs of the decline one by one (partials there), returns into the consolidation and breaks its upper edge on the way to the old highs — the full MMBM cycle closed.

Common Mistakes

• Buying during the engineering liquidity phase. The most expensive mistake: "it's cheap because it dropped" in the middle of a sell program. The decline is meant to reach the higher-timeframe PD Array zone — entries before the address are catching a falling knife.
• Shorting the decline in a bullish context. The other side of the same mistake: phase 2 looks like a downtrend and tempts you into shorts exactly where the model is preparing the reversal.
• Entering on the mere tap of the zone, without MSS and SMT. The zone is an address, not a signal. Without confirmations you are entering against ongoing downside momentum.
• Ignoring the preconditions. An MMBM inside a bearish higher-timeframe structure is usually a correction, not an accumulation cycle — such "models" break halfway through.
• Closing everything at the first target. The schematic has staged targets: the highs of the decline → the consolidation → the HTF liquidity. Closing it all at the first shelf gives away the best part of the move.
• A stop glued to the low. The bottom of the model often gets retested by a wick. A stop without a buffer dies a second before the real move.
• Seeing MMBMs everywhere. Not every V on the chart is a market maker model. Without the original consolidation, the lower highs and the HTF zone at the bottom, it is just an ordinary bounce.

The Market Maker Buy Model is a rare case in the ICT method of a tool that describes a trade from the first candle to the last — with the entry, the invalidation and the targets written into the very structure of the schematic. Its mirror image is the Market Maker Sell Model, and both models rest on the same confirmations: the Market Structure Shift and SMT divergence. Master them together, and the chart stops being a collection of candles — it becomes a map of the cycle on which you always know which side of the curve you are on.

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.

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