NDOG & NWOG — New Day and New Week Opening Gaps (ICT)

Once a day, between 5:00 and 6:00 PM New York time, the forex market and the futures markets simply stop. An hour of silence. If the reopen lands at a different level than the close, the chart is left with a gap most traders never notice — and one that ICT treats as one of the cleanest reference levels in the entire method. That's the NDOG. Its older sibling, the NWOG, forms by the same principle at the weekly scale, over the weekend halt. In this article I break down both gaps at once: how to mark them, why they work, what the game plan looks like, and what any of this has to do with the crypto market, which never sleeps.

Where opening gaps come from

Forex and CME futures don't trade non-stop. From Monday to Thursday the market closes at 5:00 PM ET and reopens at 6:00 PM ET — a one-hour maintenance break. On Friday at 5:00 PM ET the market closes for the whole weekend and doesn't return until Sunday at 6:00 PM ET.

If nothing happened during the break, the open lands where the close was — there's no gap. But it only takes a macro print after the close, a weekend geopolitical headline or a plain reshuffling of orders for price to open higher or lower. The space between the close and the open is the opening gap: NDOG (New Day Opening Gap) for the daily break, NWOG (New Week Opening Gap) for the weekend one.

ICT's key observation: these are genuine fair value gaps. Not a single transaction took place inside — a liquidity vacuum reigns there, exactly the same mechanism as in the vacuum block, of which NDOG and NWOG are the calendar-based subtypes. The market seeks fair value, and an area with no trace of trading is by definition unpriced — which is why price returns to these places, reacts to them and builds accumulation around them, often many days after the gap formed.

How to mark NDOG and NWOG

The mechanics are identical for both; only the calendar differs:

• NDOG: the closing price at 5:00 PM ET and the opening price at 6:00 PM ET, Monday through Thursday. Friday's close opens the weekly gap instead.
• NWOG: Friday's closing price at 5:00 PM ET and Sunday's opening price at 6:00 PM ET.

Watch the time zone — it's the most common source of errors. Both gaps are defined in New York time. If your platform shows the broker's server time or your local time, you'll mark a different, worthless gap. Set your chart to the New York time zone before marking anything.

Once the gap is marked, immediately plot its 50% level — the consequent encroachment. Using a Fibonacci tool with the values 0, 0.5 and 1, stretched from the bottom to the top of the gap, you get the midpoint of the range. Statistically it's the most reactive level in the whole gap — the cleanest reactions come at the midpoint, not the edges.

And the rule that separates the amateur from someone who understands the concept: one gap is not enough. ICT recommends keeping a minimum of 5 NDOGs on the chart (a full week, Monday–Friday) and a minimum of 4 NWOGs (a month). The stack of gaps is a map of fair valuation over time — support and resistance levels and liquidity magnets that price keeps returning to for weeks. A fill ends nothing: a filled NDOG keeps working as support or resistance on subsequent tests, and an NWOG from two months ago can stop price just as effectively as a fresh one.

How to trade NDOG and NWOG

An opening gap by itself is not a signal — it's a level. What to do at that level is decided by the daily bias from D1 and H4. Relative to the bias, every gap plays one of two roles.

Role 1: an entry zone

Bullish bias and price above the gap? The gap is a demand zone beneath the market. You wait for price to pull back and test the gap — ideally its 50% level — then drop to M15 or M5 and look for confirmation: a Market Structure Shift to the upside, a fresh FVG or an order block inside the zone. After confirmation you enter long with the stop beyond the gap's lower extreme, targeting the nearest liquidity magnet above.

Bearish bias and price below the gap — the mirror: a gap above the market is a supply zone; a retest plus bearish confirmation gives a short with the stop beyond the upper edge.

Role 2: a target — the draw on liquidity

Bullish bias, but the gap sits above price? Then it's not an entry zone but a magnet — the target the market is likely to reach for. Price tests the gap and closes above it, and from that moment the gap flips polarity and starts acting as support. Analogously, with a bearish bias a gap below price is the target of the move down, and after a close beneath it — resistance.

This duality makes the opening gaps a complete navigation kit: the nearer gap suggests where to enter from, the farther one — where to aim. The NWOG carries more weight than the NDOG — a gap stretched over an entire weekend has more pull than a one-hour gap — but the mechanics of both are identical.

The game plan step by step

1. Mark the gaps: the last 5 NDOGs and the last 4 NWOGs. Close at 5:00 PM ET, open at 6:00 PM ET.
2. Plot the 50% level of each gap with a 0 / 0.5 / 1 Fibonacci.
3. Set the bias on D1 and H4.
4. Locate price relative to the nearest gap. A gap behind the trend = an entry zone; a gap ahead of price = a target.
5. Drop to M15/M5 and wait for a touch of the gap or its midpoint.
6. Wait for confirmation: an MSS, an FVG or an order block inside the zone. A wick into the gap alone is not an entry.
7. Enter on the retest in the direction of the bias.
8. Stop beyond the opposite extreme of the gap with a buffer.
9. Target: the next liquidity magnet — an old high or low, equal extremes or the next opening gap in the direction of the move.

What about crypto?

Precision is needed here, because half the internet confuses these concepts. Spot BTC and ETH trade 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — daily gaps do not exist there. There's no pause, so nothing can form: an NDOG on a spot Bitcoin chart is a concept without a referent.

Opening gaps on crypto live somewhere else: on CME Bitcoin futures. CME has the daily one-hour halt and the weekend close — exactly like the indices. When BTC moves over the weekend (and it often does), Monday's futures open lands far from Friday's close and a fully-fledged NWOG is born. These are the famous "CME gaps" every crypto trader has heard about — and which spot honors surprisingly regularly, despite never printing them itself. The practice: keep the BTC1! chart (the CME contract) next to the spot chart and transfer the gap levels manually. On altcoins with no CME futures market the concept doesn't apply — there, you're left with ordinary FVGs.

Common mistakes

• The wrong time zone. The gaps are defined by New York time: 5:00–6:00 PM ET. Your broker's server time will mark a different gap.
• One gap instead of a stack. A single NDOG torn out of context means little. A week of NDOGs and a month of NWOGs is the proper map.
• Writing a gap off once it's filled. A filled gap keeps working as support or resistance — sometimes for weeks. Don't delete it from the chart after the first touch.
• Treating every retest as an entry. The gap is a zone, not a signal. The trigger is the confirmation on M15/M5 inside the zone.
• Trading against the bias. The gaps work best in the direction of the daily thesis. Contrarian trades off the gap alone have a distinctly lower hit rate.
• Skipping the 50% level. Marking only the gap's edges loses the most reactive level in the middle — the midpoint of the range.
• Looking for NDOGs on spot crypto. A market with no pauses prints no opening gaps. On crypto, look at the CME futures.

NDOG and NWOG are that rare ICT concept requiring zero interpretation: the times are fixed, the levels objective, and the only variable is your bias. The general theory of gaps after volatility shocks is in the article on the vacuum block, the mechanics of imbalances — in the piece on the FVG, and the daily rhythm of the market these gaps slot into — in the article on killzones. Start with a simple habit: tonight at 5:00 PM ET, glance at the chart and mark your first gap. After a week you'll have a full set of five NDOGs — and your own body of evidence instead of someone else's assurances.

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