Are ICT trading concepts just head and shoulders patterns?

Are ICT trading concepts just head and shoulders patterns?

The video says yes in one narrow sense: a speaker describes a head and shoulders as a sequence of swings that smart-money vocabulary also names. No source here tests that claim, and the same speakers add entry, session and fundamental rules that a pattern name does not capture.

The claim comes from BWE Podcast Episode 4, titled 'ICT CONCEPTS IS JUST HEAD & SHOULDERS'. It is a team conversation recorded in Queenstown and hosted by a presenter the captions call Carol. Several team members introduce themselves as working on marketing, on signals and on the education platform. The episode covers far more than chart patterns, and the head and shoulders remark is a short passage inside a longer discussion about how the team learned to trade.

One detail matters for accuracy. The title says ICT, but the spoken discussion uses the term SMC and the vocabulary that goes with it: break of structure, change of character, sweep of liquidity, retrace and point of interest. The transcript never defines ICT and never says ICT and SMC are the same thing. This article therefore reports what the speakers say about SMC-style vocabulary and adds no outside definition of ICT.

How attribution works in this article

The captions are auto-generated, so speaker names are unreliable and several are garbled. No claim below is pinned on a named individual. 'Rihari says' marks a claim about the team's own method or education platform. 'The video says' marks everything else the speakers state. Both labels mean a speaker's statement, not an independently checked fact. The only independently sourced facts are the two statistics cited in the statistics section.

The short verdict

• What the video claims: a head and shoulders, and a cup with handle, describe the same swings that SMC terms name.
• What the video does not show: the transcript contains no dated chart example, no count of how often the sequence completes and no result for either approach.
• What independent sources add: nothing on this specific question. The two permitted statistics describe the Australian retail CFD market and global foreign-exchange turnover.

What does the video actually say about head and shoulders?

The video says a speaker looked back at head and shoulders and saw a left shoulder, a break of structure that makes the head, a change of character and a retrace before the next move down. The speaker's conclusion, as the captions record it, is that it is just SMC.

The passage starts with a different speaker describing how they learned. They say the first educators they followed taught chart patterns in an if-this-happens-then-that style. The speaker says that was helpful because repeated behaviour follows statistics, but that they are the type of person who wants to know why price does what it does. They describe a head and shoulders as up, down, up, down, and say that once it forms the lesson is to sell or buy, depending on whether the pattern is inverted.

A second speaker then says they once wondered why people entered on a head and shoulders at all, because in their head it was too simple and just trading chart patterns. Looking back, they say it is the same thing as SMC. The left shoulder comes down, a break of structure creates the head, a change of character follows, price retraces and then goes back down.

The cup with handle example

A speaker offers the cup with handle as a second example. The video says price falls, forms the cup and handle, and once it breaks above, that is literally a change of character, a pull back and then a move up. The speakers tie this to a sweep of liquidity followed by a change of character. They say the team uses these ideas but does not present them as dinosaur shapes and unicorns, a joke about fanciful pattern names such as 'if you see this unicorn, do this'.

The simplicity thread

The same speaker who wants to know why says their early strategy on a pair the captions call GJ was super simple, a break and then an entry, and that it was easy. They add that they were not more profitable back then than they are now, and that there is a fine line. Another speaker says to keep it stupid simple but also to analyse what you need to analyse, fundamentally and technically. A third says the strategies can be super simple and that trading itself is not hard.

What the passage does and does not claim

Read carefully, the video makes a translation claim: the same swings can be named in two vocabularies. It does not make a performance claim. Nobody in the passage says SMC vocabulary produces better outcomes than pattern vocabulary. The speaker who says they were not more profitable with the simpler approach is comparing simplicity with extra analysis, not comparing one vocabulary with another. This article keeps that distinction because collapsing it would turn an opinion about naming into a claim about results.

How do head and shoulders and ICT-style terms compare side by side?

Side by side, the video treats the two as different names for overlapping price behaviour. The table below records only what the video says, and it marks the comparison as unverified because the video shows no chart test, dataset or result for either approach.

| Feature | Head and shoulders, as the video describes it | ICT/SMC-style terms, as the video describes them | | --- | --- | --- | | Vocabulary | Left shoulder, head, then a move down; taught in an if-this-then-that style | Break of structure, change of character, retrace, sweep of liquidity, point of interest | | How the swings are described | Price falls, makes a head, falls again, retraces, then moves down | The same sequence read as a break of structure, a change of character and a retrace | | Why a speaker likes it | Repeated behaviour that follows statistics | Helps the speaker understand why price moves | | Entry idea in the video | Sell or buy when the pattern completes, inverted for the opposite case | Enter on a pullback to a point of interest, with confluences such as the magic line | | Extra inputs mentioned | None in the passage | Pair tendencies, sessions, fundamentals, backtesting | | Evidence shown in the transcript | No chart test or result | No chart test or result | | Independently verified in this article | No | No |

Reading the table

The first three rows are about vocabulary and teaching style. They are where the video's claim fits best: the same swings, two sets of words, and a speaker who prefers the words that explain why. The last three rows are where the speakers' own descriptions show a gap. In practice they describe entering off a point of interest with extra confluences, tuning by pair and session, and checking fundamentals. A shape name alone does not carry any of that.

What would count as evidence

A fair test of 'just head and shoulders' would label the same instrument, period and swings both ways, apply the same entry, stop and risk rules to each, and compare outcomes over a large sample. The video provides none of that, and this article does not run one. The table should therefore be read as a map of what the speakers claim, not as a finding about which method is better.

What does the video say a pattern name leaves out?

The video says its speakers also use points of interest, pair tendencies, trading sessions, backtesting and fundamentals when they trade. On that account a shape name alone does not describe how they enter, which weakens the claim that the two approaches are interchangeable in practice.

Points of interest and the 50% line

One speaker describes a gold example. Price came down and created a wick, then pulled back up to a point of interest, but there was no break of structure with a body close. A new wick formed, price closed its body below it, made a point of interest and pulled back to it before dropping. The speaker says that pullback was not to the 50% level and ties it to what the education platform teaches. Rihari says the team sticks by entering off points of interest. Another speaker says they enter every time the magic line lines up with a point of interest above 50%.

The golden zone and pair tendencies

A speaker uses a Fibonacci golden zone of 0.618 to 0.786 but says some pairs only tap the 50% level, and others land between 50% and 61.8%, so they do not apply the golden zone to every pair. The video also says gold often moves deep into a higher-timeframe point of interest and mitigates a 5-minute or 1-minute point inside it, while EUR/JPY likes the edge of the higher-timeframe point and does not come deeper, so waiting for a deeper entry misses it. The speakers present these as observed tendencies, not proven rules.

Sessions

A speaker says a strategy used for six months, break of structure, pullback, point of interest, can fail when applied in a different session because that session is slower or faster. Their advice is to be specific when backtesting: which session, where the pullbacks happen and how fast they happen. This is a claim that the same sequence behaves differently by session, which a fixed shape name does not express.

Tendencies change

A speaker says gold has recently, when little news is driving it, built liquidity through equal lows or equal highs instead of breaking and changing character, and price still moved in the direction they anticipated. They frame the choice as whether to break or adjust your rules, or to sit on your hands and rely on the data and the rules you usually follow. Another speaker says they had assumed pair tendencies stay the same and had not thought of them changing. For this article's question, the point is that the speakers describe the sequence as varying by pair, session and market conditions rather than as a fixed shape.

Fundamentals

One speaker says they focus on fundamentals and trade major US dollar news, arguing that understanding the data lets them anticipate where the market should go. They say they study what drives CPI, PPI and jobs data and look left at how the market behaved before, and that it gives them an edge in not being pulled into small trades. The video also relays a claim from another podcast that everything between news events is speculation. The video does not verify that claim and neither does this article.

Order-flow tools

One speaker describes the magic line as showing where the most orders have been placed in a range, and says it is based on order flow, linking it to futures markets where contract sizes are visible. The same speaker says they are experimenting with cumulative volume delta. These are tool descriptions by the speakers. Nothing in the transcript verifies how the tools work or what results they give, and the speakers invite listeners to join their Discord to find out more.

Everyday tools

The speakers say TradingView is the main charting platform and list the long and short position tool, the rectangle tool for marking points of interest, a Fibonacci tool and a trade execution pad. One speaker says better equipment makes trading easier, not more profitable, and that a phone and an internet connection are enough to begin. Another says a free TradingView account and a demo account make entry low cost and low risk.

What this adds up to

None of this proves that the SMC approach beats or loses to pattern trading. It shows that the speakers' own practice includes many inputs beyond swing labels. If 'just head and shoulders' means the same swing sequence can be named both ways, the video supports that as an opinion. If it means the two approaches are interchangeable in practice, the speakers' own descriptions point the other way.

How can a learner test the 'just head and shoulders' claim?

A learner can test it with a written, repeatable process: label the same swings both ways, backtest one pair and one session, journal every setup and judge results over a large sample. The steps below follow the video's advice and add editorial structure that the video does not itself provide.

1. Write the claim as one sentence. For example: the swing sequence in a head and shoulders is the same swing sequence SMC-style terms describe. A specific sentence stops the test drifting into the vaguer question of whether a method works.
2. Pick one instrument and one session. The video says behaviour differs by pair and by session, so a mixed sample hides those differences.
3. Mark every head and shoulders on the chart using the video's description. Use the left shoulder, a break of structure that creates the head, a change of character and a retrace. Then relabel the same swings with SMC terms. Note where the labels agree and where they need judgement, such as deciding which swing counts as the break of structure.
4. Record what the SMC vocabulary adds. Look for a sweep of liquidity, a point of interest and a body close. Note what a pure pattern reading would ignore.
5. Backtest the period and log every setup. The video says a backtested week does not mean you took every opportunity live, and advises letting go of the profit an ideal run would have shown, so the gap between the two should not be read as a failure of the method.
6. Journal each setup with the reason. The video says the journal is what shows repeated mistakes, and one speaker's example entry is a rule to stop trading against the trend when there is no clear change of character.
7. Judge over a large sample. A speaker says to look at 100 trades as a whole, not the last 10, and calls the market a matter of probabilities.
8. Practise before using real money. The video says demo accounts are free and that a challenge-style trial with fixed loss limits builds discipline. One speaker is unsure of the exact limits, so check the rules with any provider. A practice result is not a prediction of a live result.

This process tests vocabulary and consistency. It cannot prove that either method is profitable, and this article makes no promise of income, returns or safety.

What do the sourced statistics say about retail trading?

Two independently sourced figures frame this topic. One reports that most Australian retail CFD investors lost money in a recent financial year, and the other reports the scale of daily foreign-exchange turnover. Neither figure evaluates ICT concepts or head and shoulders patterns.

Retail CFD losses in Australia

ASIC Report 828: Risky business records that 68% of Australian retail CFD investors lost money in the 2024 financial year. This is the only outcome statistic in the article. It describes a group of investors in one financial year, not the users of any one method, course or signal service.

The scale of the foreign-exchange market

The BIS 2025 Triennial Survey reports average daily over-the-counter foreign-exchange turnover of US$9.6 trillion in April 2025. The figure describes how large the market is. It does not describe how individual traders fared, and it says nothing about which analysis method works.

How to read the two together

Both statements can be true at once: the foreign-exchange market is very large, and a majority of Australian retail CFD investors lost money in the year ASIC reports on. The video's statements that trading itself is not hard and that strategies can be super simple are speaker opinions, and neither figure confirms them. Neither figure refutes them either, because neither breaks results down by method.

The video's own speakers also describe difficulty. They say beginners commonly underestimate the psychological side, that people who jump into live markets after a week or two of learning tend to lose money, and that trading is hard in some ways. Those are the video's claims and are not independently verified here.

Limits of the figures

The speakers discuss forex, gold and futures. The ASIC figure covers retail CFD investors, so this article does not say it describes the speakers or their students. The BIS figure covers the whole market, so it says nothing about any one trader. Both are context, not evidence about ICT or head and shoulders.

Which claims in the video are verified and which are only claims?

Only the two cited statistics are independently verified in this article. Everything else, including the head and shoulders comparison, win rates, market cycles and order-flow tools, is a claim made by speakers in the video and is presented here as attribution, not fact.

Verified independently

• The ASIC loss figure for Australian retail CFD investors in the 2024 financial year.
• The BIS average daily foreign-exchange turnover figure for April 2025.

Claims made in the video and not verified here

• The video says head and shoulders and cup with handle are the same swings that SMC terms name.
• The video says trading itself is not hard, that you do not need to be smart and that strategies can be super simple.
• The video says the team's signals have amazing win rates and risk to reward, and shows no figures to support it.
• The video says some large online traders spent at least seven years getting to where they are, and that audiences only see the wins.
• The video says market cycles repeat around March and April with a similar number of pips, and jokes that it is a cheat code. A speaker also links a change in gold's tendencies to a shift between phases described as T1 and T2, in connection with Fedwire, and says it is something to look into. This article does not verify it.
• The video says the magic line reflects where most orders sit, and a speaker mentions cumulative volume delta as something they are experimenting with.
• The video says knowing fundamentals lets a trader anticipate where the market should go.
• The video says free information is marketing and that YouTube content shows the basics so that viewers buy a course.
• One speaker says beliefs about being worthy affect how much a trader can make. This article treats that as an opinion.

Personal accounts, not typical results

One speaker describes a single day with a very large win that followed a loss the day before. They say it was an accident and luck, that the strategy that day was proper dumb, that they probably should never trade like that and that trying to win back a loss is something you should not do. Another speaker says other days do not offer that and that it is not even possible unless you are overleveraging hugely. Speakers also describe cutting sleep, family time and television to trade. This article does not present any of these accounts as typical, repeatable or a business, performance or income claim.

What does the video say about learning, mentors and risk?

The video says education, journaling, backtesting and psychology matter more than fancy tools, and that the right mentor matters. Its speakers are involved in an education platform and signals service, so readers should weigh that commercial interest and treat none of it as a return promise.

What beginners misunderstand

The video says people arrive expecting to invest $100 and make a million within months, or to become full-time day traders after a month of learning. One speaker says people six months in ask whether they can quit their job and follow signals, and answers that catching the signals requires the psychology behind it. Speakers say social media shows the wins and not the years behind them, and that a losing beginner often jumped into live markets after only a week or two of learning.

Psychology and losing streaks

The speakers describe psychology as central and joke that a psychologist helps. Their answers to a losing streak are practical: remember your reason for trading, write a journal, look at 100 trades instead of the last 10, backtest again to rebuild confidence, and do not blame the market. One speaker reads the last two weeks of their journal each morning. One journal entry read aloud is a rule to stop going against the trend when there is no clear change of character, which shows the SMC vocabulary used as a discipline rule and not as a pattern name.

Pressing the button

Asked how to overcome hesitating at the entry, the speakers point to backtesting, to trusting the data from their own record and to accepting that outcomes are probabilities. One says it is easier for beginners, who enter without overthinking, and harder for experienced traders who do not want to be wrong. These are personal coping methods, not evidence that any entry method works.

Mentors, education and the commercial interest

The speakers say to get a mentor early but to find the right one. One speaker went through several mentors before one resonated. Another says they lost months in a multi-level marketing style group that pushed them to bring friends and family, and later had to unlearn what they picked up. A third describes a course built on a proprietary scanner, where students felt they lost their trading ability when a subscription lapsed and a new favourite system every week kept people paying and switching. One speaker says they needed to know why price should bounce from a line, and that being told to buy at the magic line was not enough.

One speaker says free information is marketing and that they would not try to learn from YouTube, then adds that the team does the same thing. That candour is worth noting. The speakers describe themselves as working on the team's education platform, signals and marketing, so advice to buy education comes from parties who sell it. Readers should weigh that, and should be equally wary of any provider, including this one, who promises results.

The small-budget hypothetical

The video poses a hypothetical about how a beginner should use a small amount of money. The answers favour paying for education and practising on demo or a challenge-style trial before funding a live account. One speaker says people who try to earn back a course fee within a month usually will not manage it, and another says videos of small accounts flipped into large ones show seasoned traders. Some answers include enrolling in the team's own course and signals, which is a commercial recommendation from the seller. This article repeats none of the course or signal prices mentioned.

Habits the speakers recommend

• Do not trade every session and get some sleep.
• Do not enter within the first five minutes of looking at the market.
• Journal every trade, because the best book is the one written about your own trading.
• Keep learning what you are making mistakes on, not everything at once.

These are one team's suggestions and not personal financial advice. The article is educational and does not promise income, investment returns or safety.