Trading and Crypto

How to Find High-Probability Trading Entries Using the ICC Concept

How I Find My Trading Entries | Trading Course 003

Video: How I Find My Trading Entries | Trading Course 003

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· based on the channel SCI

Trading entries are found by marking a high-probability level in advance, waiting for price to correct into it, and only executing after a clear confirmation that the original move is continuing. The ICC concept — Indication, Correction, Continuation — turns that process into a repeatable checklist instead of a feeling. The SCI channel breaks this down in the video "How I Find My Trading Entries | Trading Course 003", and the same framework is what traders in the SCI Instagram community apply to XAUUSD and forex charts every session.

Why entry timing beats entry hunting

Entry timing is the part of trading that looks trivial until real money is on the line. Most losing trades are not the result of a bad idea — they are the result of a good idea executed at the wrong moment, usually after the move has already extended. A trader who marks a level and waits is doing something fundamentally different from a trader who scans for "something that looks strong right now".

The first trader has a plan that survives the market moving against them for a while. The second trader is reacting, and reaction almost always means a worse price, a wider stop, and a smaller reward-to-risk ratio. This is why entry work is really preparation work: the decision is made before the candle that matters even prints.

The three phases of the ICC concept

ICC stands for Indication, Correction, Continuation, and it describes the lifecycle of a tradable move rather than a single candlestick pattern.

  1. Indication — price makes a decisive move that marks a level: a swing high or low, a break of structure, or a strong displacement candle. This is where the level gets drawn, not where the trade gets taken.
  2. Correction — price pulls back into that marked level. The correction is the opportunity, because it is the only phase where you can enter with a tight stop and a defined invalidation point.
  3. Continuation — price resumes the original direction. The entry is taken on the evidence of continuation, not on the hope that the correction is over.

The practical consequence is that you spend most of your screen time waiting. That is the point. The setup is identified during the indication, prepared during the correction, and triggered during the continuation.

How to mark the level before price arrives

Marking is the step that separates a prepared trader from a busy one. The level has to exist on your chart before price reaches it, otherwise you are drawing lines to fit a trade you already want to take.

A workable marking routine looks like this:

  • Identify the most recent displacement move on your higher timeframe — the candle or sequence that clearly changed the direction of the market.
  • Mark the origin of that move: the swing low it launched from in an uptrend, or the swing high it sold off from in a downtrend.
  • Add the intermediate level where the move paused, since corrections often stall there first.
  • Note the invalidation point: the price at which the whole idea is wrong, not the price at which you feel uncomfortable.

Once the level is marked, the chart is no longer a source of decisions. It is a source of confirmation or rejection. Traders who describe themselves as "getting the hang of it" usually mean exactly this shift — fewer decisions, more waiting for a predefined script to play out.

Confirmation triggers that justify an entry

Confirmation is what converts a marked level into an executed trade. Without it, you are buying or selling into a falling or rising market and calling it patience.

Useful confirmation on a lower timeframe includes:

  • A rejection wick that leaves the level and closes back outside it.
  • A shift in market structure on the entry timeframe — a small break of the most recent opposing swing.
  • A displacement candle in the direction of the original indication, ideally closing beyond the correction's midpoint.
  • A return to the level that holds on a second test, showing sellers or buyers are no longer able to push through.

Any single one of these can be enough depending on context, but the entry should never happen before at least one of them appears. The trigger also defines the stop: if the confirmation fails, the trade is closed rather than averaged into.

Risk, position size and the cost of a bad entry

Entry quality and risk management are the same conversation, because a bad entry forces a bad stop. When you enter late, your invalidation point is far away, and the only way to keep risk constant is to shrink position size — which shrinks the reward that made the trade attractive in the first place.

A simple framework that keeps entries honest:

  1. Fix the percentage of account risked per trade before looking at the chart.
  2. Measure the distance from entry to invalidation in points or pips.
  3. Divide the risk amount by that distance to get position size.
  4. If the resulting size is so small that the trade is not worth taking, the entry is too late — skip it.

This is also why traders who report big wins and painful lessons in the same breath usually point to risk and emotion rather than to the concept itself. The setup does not fail because the idea was wrong; it fails because the entry was chased and the stop was placed where the market could reach it easily.

Common entry questions traders actually ask

The most frequent doubt is whether the correction is finished or whether it is the start of a reversal. There is no way to know in advance, which is why the entry is taken on confirmation and not on prediction. If the confirmation never comes, there is no trade, and that is a valid outcome.

A second recurring question is whether a trader should keep watching videos after already understanding the concept. Understanding and execution are separate skills: the concept can be clear while the discipline to wait for the third phase is still missing. Reviewing a course repeatedly is useful mainly because it re-anchors the checklist, not because the information is new.

A third theme is session choice and screen time. Traders working night shifts or low-volume sessions often report clearer decisions, simply because there is less noise and fewer impulses to click. Entry quality tends to improve when the environment stops rewarding urgency.

Final thoughts on building a repeatable entry process

Finding entries is a process of elimination: mark fewer levels, wait longer, and execute only when the market confirms the continuation. The ICC framework works because it assigns a specific job to each phase — the indication defines the level, the correction defines the opportunity, and the continuation defines the trigger. Traders who struggle with entries are usually not missing information; they are skipping the waiting phase between indication and continuation. SCI built this course around that gap, and the practical next step is to apply the checklist to one instrument and one session until the sequence becomes automatic. Follow along and grab the resources through the SCI Instagram page.

Key takeaways

  • Entry timing is a skill, not a signal: the setup must be marked before price arrives, not after.
  • The ICC concept splits every trade into three phases: Indication, Correction, Continuation.
  • Marking a level is useless without a confirmation trigger on a lower timeframe.
  • Risk per trade is fixed before entry; position size is calculated from stop distance, not from conviction.
  • Almost every failed entry can be traced back to chasing price instead of waiting for the correction to finish.

Source: How I Find My Trading Entries | Trading Course 003 · Markdown version

Questions & answers

What exactly is the ICC concept in trading?

ICC stands for Indication, Correction and Continuation. Indication marks the level with a decisive move, correction brings price back into that level, and continuation confirms that the original direction has resumed. The entry is taken during the continuation phase, never during the indication.

How do I know when a correction is over?

You do not know in advance — you wait for evidence. A rejection wick at the level, a small shift in market structure on your entry timeframe, or a displacement candle in the original direction are all valid triggers. If none of them appear, the correct action is to take no trade.

Why do my entries keep ending in losses even when my analysis is right?

Late entries are the usual cause. Entering after the move has extended pushes your invalidation point further away, which forces a wider stop or a smaller position size and worsens your reward-to-risk. Fixing risk per trade and calculating size from the stop distance, not from conviction, removes most of that problem.

Do I need to watch a full trading course more than once?

Repeating the material helps mainly with execution, not with information. Traders who already understand the concept often rewatch it to re-anchor the checklist and stop improvising entries. The goal is to reach a point where the sequence of marking, waiting and confirming happens without internal debate.

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