How to backtest the ICT Silver Bullet strategy on ES and NQ

The setup as it’s commonly taught

• Time windows — 03:00–04:00, 10:00–11:00 and 14:00–15:00 New York time. Most index futures traders focus on 10:00–11:00.
• Draw on liquidity — identify the nearby high or low price is likely to run to: the session high or low, the prior day’s high or low, or equal highs and lows.
• Sweep and displacement — price takes out a nearby high or low, then moves sharply the other way, leaving a fair value gap (FVG): a three-candle pattern where the first candle’s wick and the third candle’s wick don’t overlap.
• Entry — a limit order on the retrace into the FVG, inside the window.
• Stop — beyond the swing that formed the FVG.
• Target — the opposing liquidity.

Make it objective before you test it

Interpretations of ICT concepts vary a lot. Write your own definitions so two people would take the same trades:

• Which FVG timeframe counts: 1-minute, 5-minute or both?
• Minimum FVG size in ticks, and minimum distance from entry to target.
• What counts as a sweep: a wick through the level, or a close beyond it?
• Entry at the FVG edge, the midpoint, or the far side.
• Exactly where the stop goes, and whether you move it to breakeven.
• One trade per window or several; what happens to an unfilled order at 11:00.

Setting up the backtest in Charts Replay

1. Create a session on ES or NQ and choose fixed daily window replay in New York time, for example 09:30 to 11:30, so every day gives you the opening context plus the full 10:00–11:00 window.
2. Add the built-in ICT Base Indicators: New York session zones, the 09:30 bar highlight, multi-timeframe fair value gaps, liquidity highs and lows, and optional prior day and week highs and lows.
3. Replay one bar at a time through the window. When your sweep and FVG rules are met, place a limit order at your entry with a bracket for stop and target.
4. Cancel unfilled orders at your cutoff and move to the next day. The cancelled orders stay in the order log, which is useful when you review missed fills.
5. After 100 or more windows, open the report and break the results down.

What to measure

• Expectancy in R after commissions.
• Fill rate of FVG limit orders, and how the trades you missed would have done.
• Results by which liquidity was swept (session high/low, prior day, equal highs/lows).
• Results by entry time within the window and by FVG timeframe.
• MAE on winners — how much heat a winning Silver Bullet usually takes before working.

Pitfalls

• Marking the “obvious” liquidity after you’ve seen where price went.
• Taking FVGs outside the window because they look good.
• Counting a fill when price only came within a tick of your limit — in Charts Replay a limit fills only if price actually reaches it.
• Testing on a handful of famous days instead of every day in the period.

Charts Replay is not affiliated with ICT (Inner Circle Trader). This guide describes a common interpretation of the Silver Bullet setup for backtesting purposes; it is not trading advice.