Intermediate📖 22 min read🏷 PD Arrays
DEALING RANGES & PD ARRAYS
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How to Map and Test Price Delivery Arrays
ICT Flow EditorialIndependent educational resource
This lesson explains concepts commonly taught in ICT/SMC trading education and presents them as frameworks to study and test. Chart patterns cannot independently prove institutional intent, future price delivery, or profitability. Examples and rules are educational, not trading advice.
Read our editorial standards →PD Arrays—Price Delivery Arrays—are chart features named in ICT methodology, such as FVGs, order blocks, breakers, and related zones. Traders may use them as reference areas, but chart patterns do not confirm underlying institutional orders or algorithmic intent. Understanding which arrays exist, how to rank them by strength, and how to use them in order of priority is what separates advanced ICT practitioners from beginners who draw random boxes and call them Order Blocks.
Examples of PD Array labels used in ICT material; any ranking of them needs a defined test
// Lesson Content
A dealing range is a price interval defined by a trader, often between a swing high and low. Premium and discount are labels relative to the range midpoint; they do not mean that a price is objectively expensive or cheap, nor do they prove where institutions are buying or selling.
Some ICT traders use these zones to organize directional scenarios. Define the swing points and midpoint consistently, then test whether a premium/discount filter adds value to your setup. Lower-timeframe and higher-timeframe ranges can disagree, so define which range controls your rule instead of treating one timeframe as universally dominant.
📌 Premium and discount can be context filters in an ICT model, but the 50% level is not a standalone buy or sell command. Compare results with and without this filter before claiming it improves trade selection.
ICT material describes chart features such as breakers, order blocks, FVGs, BISI/SIBI and other arrays, and some traders rank them by preference. There is no universal, independently established ranking that guarantees one array will produce a stronger reaction than another. The appearance, definition and result can depend on the market, timeframe and trader's rules.
If you rank arrays, write the exact definition for each one and score all examples before knowing their outcome. Compare each category with a consistent baseline using the same instruments, periods, stop and target rules, spread, slippage and management assumptions. Avoid presenting personal grading as a measured probability unless representative data supports it.
📌 Treat array rankings as hypotheses. A chart label does not prove institutional orders or reaction strength; define your rules and compare results with a baseline.
Traders can mark ranges on monthly, weekly, daily and intraday charts, but there is no universal rule that a higher timeframe must override every lower-timeframe signal. A higher-timeframe range may be useful context while a lower-timeframe signal may be used for execution. Define the priority in your written model and test it.
For example, you might require the 1-hour range to set a directional filter and use a 5-minute pattern to trigger an entry. Record the cases where the filter helps and where it excludes otherwise profitable setups. Do not call a setup low probability without measured evidence.
📌 Higher-timeframe ranges may provide context but do not automatically override lower-timeframe signals. Specify how the timeframes interact in your model and test the combined rule.
Some traders prefer locations where multiple reference features overlap—for example, a dealing-range discount, a bullish FVG and a structure level. This can be logged as a confluence score, but more labels do not automatically mean higher probability. Define each feature without looking ahead, compare results with setups having fewer features, and account for how extra filters reduce the number of trades.
📌 OB, FVG and BPR overlap is one possible confluence rule. Grades such as A+ or C are subjective unless defined in advance; test whether each added condition improves results instead of assuming a universal ranking.
DRAWING ORDER BLOCKS:
Mark the body of the last bearish candle before a bullish displacement (for bullish OB). The OB zone spans from the candle's body high to body low. Some practitioners use wick-to-wick -- ICT traditionally uses body only for the core zone.
DRAWING FVGs:
Mark the high of candle 1 and the low of candle 3 for a bullish FVG. The midpoint is the Consequent Encroachment (CE) -- your primary entry level within the gap.
DRAWING BREAKER BLOCKS:
When an OB is violated (price completely trades through it), flip its polarity. Mark it as a Breaker Block -- it becomes resistance for a bullish OB that was broken, or support for a bearish OB that was broken.
DRAWING BPR:
Identify a bullish FVG and a bearish FVG in the same area. The overlapping zone between them is the BPR.
KEY RULE -- REMOVE MITIGATED ARRAYS:
Once price has returned to an array and traded through its entire range, that array is consumed. Remove it from your chart. Leaving consumed arrays creates false signals and chart clutter. Only active, unmitigated arrays belong on your working chart.
📌 Some ICT models treat a revisited or crossed zone as mitigated. Define mitigation precisely and apply that rule consistently; a zone's usefulness cannot be established by its label alone.
// Test Your Understanding
// KNOWLEDGE CHECK
1. In a dealing range, institutions buy in...
2. Which PD Array ranks highest in the matrix?
3. When should a PD Array be removed from your chart?
// What to study next
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