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What are order blocks?
An order block is the last opposing candle before a strong displacement move: the final down-close candle before price drives up, or the final up-close candle before it drives down. This guide shows how to spot bullish and bearish order blocks, what a breaker block is, and how an order block differs from a rejection block.
The last opposing candle
A bullish order block is the last down-close candle before a bullish displacement: price was drifting lower, one candle closes down, and then price moves up hard and fast. That last down-close candle is the block, and traders mark its range as a zone below price.
A bearish order block is the mirror image: the last up-close candle before a bearish displacement, marked as a zone above price.
In ICT terms these zones are areas of institutional interest. Some traders mark only the single last candle; others mark the last few opposing candles together, as one box. Either way, the displacement after it is what makes it an order block.
What happens to an order block afterwards
Price returns to it. After the displacement, traders watch for price to come back into the block. A bullish block below price is read as support on that return, and a bearish block above price as resistance.
It fails and becomes a breaker. When an order block fails and price breaks through it, the broken block becomes a breaker block: a zone of interest on the opposite side. A failed bullish block that was support now acts as resistance, and a failed bearish block that was resistance now acts as support.
Higher-timeframe blocks. An order block on the hourly or 4-hour chart is easy to lose on the 1-minute chart you execute on. Mapping higher-timeframe blocks down to that chart keeps them in view, so a lower-timeframe entry can be lined up with higher-timeframe structure.
Order blocks and fair value gaps
A displacement strong enough to leave an order block often leaves a fair value gap as well: the three-candle imbalance price moves away from. On a chart the two sit side by side, the block first and the gap just after it.
The 2022 model, as 2022 Model Pro+’s manual describes it, combines a liquidity sweep, a market-structure shift and a returning order block or fair value gap into one setup. The Unicorn is the case where an order block and a fair value gap overlap.
Order block vs rejection block vs breaker block
- Order block: the last opposing candle before a displacement, read from where the candle closed. Bullish below price, bearish above.
- Rejection block: built from the wick. Price wicks past a prior swing high or low, taking the liquidity there, but closes back inside the range. Some traders also mark the block’s 50% midpoint.
- Breaker block: an order block that failed. Price broke through it, and it now acts on the other side: old support as resistance, old resistance as support.
Our tools that work with order blocks
We don’t have a free order-block indicator. These are the pages that mark order blocks or the blocks and gaps around them.
- Rejection Block Pro+ (free): Marks rejection blocks: a wick past a prior high or low that closes back inside.
- 2022 Model Pro+: Alerts Unicorn and Silver Bullet setups in real time using leading order-block detection, and grades each setup.
- Quadz Pro+: Draws rejection blocks (RB and RB+) alongside OTE zones, SMT divergence and the killzones.
- What is a fair value gap: The three-candle imbalance a displacement leaves, and what happens to it afterwards.
Educational content. An order block describes what price did; it doesn’t predict what price will do. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss. See our risk disclosures.