Stacked True Opens — Catching Every Reversal

In this one we're covering true opens, but more specifically stacked true opens — a simple, powerful way to find much higher-probability setups, higher-probability manipulation, all that good stuff. Easy to understand and easy to apply.

Quick recap — what is a true open?

A true open is the opening price of Q2 of every single cycle. A few examples:

• True week open — viewed on the hourly. It's Monday's 18:00 candle, but that's actually Tuesday's candle open (Tuesday is Q2 of the weekly cycle).
• True day open — viewed on the 15-minute. Your classic midnight open that ICT teaches.
• True session open — viewed on the 5-minute, and there's a different one for each session: Asia 7:30 PM, London 1:30 AM, New York AM 7:30 AM, New York PM 1:30 PM.

What do we look for? Bullish manipulation below a true open, bearish manipulation above a true open. True opens act as a time-based premium and discount — look for longs below a true open, shorts above one. This isn't always true (you can long above a true open), but generally you want to at least see a form of manipulation occur below a true open if bullish, or above one if bearish. Once that manipulation takes place, you can look for trades.

Full breakdown of every cycle's true open and timing is in the True Opens article.

What are stacked true opens?

You need to see one true open on any cycle. If you're on the 90-minute cycle, that's the true session open; daily cycle → true day open; weekly cycle → true week open. Same on any cycle.

Then you add one cycle higher. Looking at the true session open? Also bring in the true day open. Looking at the true day open? Also bring in the true week open. One direct cycle above, added into your analysis.

Stacked true opens are just two true opens together. Same use — bias, manipulation, time-based premium/discount — but a lot higher probability, because you're incorporating two cycles to confirm whether price is at an extreme discount or extreme premium.

The order matters

They must be in a specific order:

Bullish scenario: the lower-timeframe true open must be below and the higher-timeframe true open above. (e.g. true day below, true week above; or true session below, true day above.)

Bearish scenario: flipped — the lower-timeframe true open above, the higher-timeframe true open below.

You can't have the higher timeframe below the lower and call it bullish stacked opens. That doesn't work.

How to use it

Bullish example: true day opened up below the true week. Now once price manipulates and drops below that true day open, you can really anticipate a nice move to the upside — because price below both true opens indicates an extreme discount. One true open below = a time-based discount. Two true opens below = an extreme time-based discount.

Bearish example: flipped. True session above the true day. Anything above those two stacked opens is at an extreme premium and likely to reverse down.

What you look for to confirm the manipulation is over is ideally a cracking correlation below (or above) the stacked opens — a Sequential SMT, a PSP, or an SMT Fill. Once that manipulation has taken place, trade in line with the opens.

Remember: once price drops below the stacked opens, you can still look for shorts even below them — as long as the manipulation took place above them first, you're good.

On the charts

On the 5-minute (90-minute cycle): for the bearish scenario, true session open above the true day open. Price comes above both → 90-minute cycle SMT → back-to-back sell-off. New true session for NY AM, no SMT there but a PSP on that very high → clean shorts. Scrolling through, the pattern repeats — true session below the true day, price drops below, 90-minute SMT, mark the tCISD, enter off the retest, stop on the SMT low. Very clean.

Spotting these on the fly is much faster with the QT Toolkit — it plots every true open across cycles automatically so you can see stacked configurations at a glance.

Key Takeaways

• A true open is the open of Q2 on any cycle — true week (hourly), true day (15m, the midnight open), true session (5m, one per session).
• Look for longs below a true open, shorts above — true opens are a time-based premium/discount.
• Stacked opens = one true open plus the one directly one cycle higher.
• Order is everything: bullish needs lower-TF open below + higher-TF open above; bearish is flipped.
• Below two true opens = extreme discount; above two = extreme premium.
• Confirm the reversal with a cracking correlation (SSMT, PSP, or SMT Fill) at the stacked opens, then trade in line.