Turtle Soup
Also: turtle soup setup, turtle soup short, turtle soup long, failed breakout fade, above-old-high fade
Visual Context Required
This concept requires chart visuals for full understanding.
Turtle Soup is ICT's named setup for fading a breakout above a prior swing high (or below a prior swing low) that fails to sustain — exploiting the liquidity created by the breakout move by positioning in the opposite direction immediately after the high (or low) is taken out. The concept originates from the "Turtle Traders" methodology (popularized by Richard Dennis and William Eckhardt), where traders would buy new N-day highs or sell new N-day lows. Turtle Soup is the counter-strategy: instead of buying the breakout, ICT fades the stop-run above the prior high — entering short as the breakout traders (the "turtles") are being stopped out on their longs, or as breakout buyers are being trapped. Structural mechanics: — A prior swing high (relative equal highs, or a clean standalone high) forms, creating buy-stop liquidity above it. — Price breaks above that high, triggering the buy stops and trapping breakout buyers. — After the raid, price reverses and trades back below the prior high. — Turtle Soup short entry: sell limit (or sell stop) on the return below the prior high, anticipating displacement downward from the failed breakout. — The bearish mirror (Turtle Soup long): a prior swing low is swept, sell stops are triggered, and price reverses upward. Entry is a buy limit on the return above the prior low after the sweep. In 2024, ICT uses Turtle Soup in the context of daily and weekly structure: — When a range is broken out and price extends one quarter of the prior range above/below the breakout level, that extension zone is a reference for potential Turtle Soup. — At all-time highs, the rule of thumb is to "stick with going long until it proves otherwise" — Turtle Soup at all-time highs is lower probability unless the range extension (one quarter of the prior range) has been achieved and price fails. — The NQ Turtle Soup Short (June 2024): demonstrated in real time as a short fade above a consolidation high, using sell-side imbalance and inversion FVG for entry and a prior buy-side imbalance as target.
Identification6
- Identify a prior swing high (buy-stop liquidity pool) or swing low (sell-stop liquidity pool) — these are the candidate levels for Turtle Soup.
- Relative equal highs (two or more highs at approximately the same level) are the highest-probability Turtle Soup candidates because they represent compounded buy-stop liquidity.
- For Turtle Soup short: price breaks above the prior high, triggering buy stops. After the breakout wick or candle close, watch for rejection and return below the prior high level.
- Confirmation (bearish): price breaks above the high, then closes back below it (or forms a displacement candle lower) — this is the signal that the breakout has failed.
- NQ-specific: if price has broken out and extended one quarter of the prior consolidation range, that one-quarter extension is a reference zone for Turtle Soup consideration.
- At all-time highs: Turtle Soup shorts are low probability — the default is to remain bullish until the market proves otherwise (e.g., sustained close below the breakout level).
Entry4
- Sell limit: placed at or slightly below the prior high after the sweep and initial rejection (for short Turtle Soup).
- Alternatively: sell stop below the candle that first closes back below the prior high level — confirming the failed breakout.
- For NQ intraday Turtle Soup: can use a sell-side imbalance (bearish FVG or volume imbalance) that forms during the breakout rejection candle as the entry array.
- 2025 Deferred Entry (Rejection Block method): instead of entering at the actual swept high, identify the highest up-close candle immediately before the displacement lower. This is the bearish rejection block. Enter at or near the closing price of that rejection block candle when price retraces up into it. This is a more conservative, delayed entry that requires price to come back to the rejection block level rather than chasing the immediate sweep reversal.
Stop2
- Stop loss: above the high of the Turtle Soup candle (the wick that exceeded the prior high) — one tick above that extreme.
- If price returns to and closes above the stop level, the setup is invalidated.
Target3
- First target: prior discount array in the direction of the fade (for short Turtle Soup, a buy-side imbalance or FVG below).
- Full target: the sell-side liquidity (prior swing lows) that served as stop-out levels for buyers who entered above the prior high.
- NQ-specific: relative equal lows or a prior NDOG/NWOG level below the range.
Invalidation3
- Price sustains above the prior high with expansion candles (multiple closes above the level) — this indicates a genuine breakout, not a Turtle Soup trap.
- Higher-timeframe bias is strongly directional in the breakout direction — Turtle Soup setups against the HTF trend have lower probability.
- The prior high was a 'fresh' all-time high with no overhead resistance — these require more evidence of failure before Turtle Soup can be confidently faded.
Inferred Conditions (Unvalidated)
- Turtle Soup is most effective when the prior high is a clean, obvious stop-hunt level that many retail traders would have identified as a breakout entry. The more 'obvious' the prior high, the more buy-stop liquidity above it, and the more potent the reversal.
- The failed breakout mechanism: breakout buyers trigger, they establish their stop losses below the prior high. When the Turtle Soup reversal begins, those same buyers become forced sellers, amplifying the move down.
- Turtle Soup at range tops on daily/weekly charts is the higher-timeframe version of the same concept ICT demonstrates on 1-minute and 5-minute charts intraday.
ICT Quotes
"See that that is actually turtle soup, and I will be teaching that in an upcoming lecture. It ain't the guy on Twitter teaching you the secrets of turtle soup. And it's no, it's not when the rash version, either."
"Once a range is broken out, you're going to look for either upside objective, very simple, cut and dry, draw and liquidity, or a frame of reference for potential turtle soup. This is a good general rule of thumb I've used over the years. It's real simple. It's not really based on anything that's in technical books, but one quarter of the beauty range broken out — that's where I think markets can trade to when we're trading with all time highs okay? So you stick with going long until it proves otherwise."
"That is the rejection block. It's a bearish rejection block, and right there, just like that."
"this is a deferred entry to a turtle soup. False breakout. Higher, high reversal pattern."
Timeframes
Version History4 versions
ICT YT - 2025-04-22 - 2025 Lecture Series - Turtle Soup Deferred Entry With -Rejection Block.srt
"That is the rejection block. It's a bearish rejection block, and right there, just like that. this is a deferred entry to a turtle soup. False breakout. Higher, high reversal pattern."
2025 refinement: introduces the Deferred Entry with Rejection Block as an alternative turtle soup entry. Instead of entering at the swept high, identify the highest up-close candle before the displacement lower (the rejection block) and enter at or near its closing price on a retrace. Named 'deferred entry' because it waits for price to return to the rejection block rather than chasing the immediate reversal. Context: false breakout / higher-high reversal pattern.
Historical ICT content (pre-2017 mentorship)
"Turtle Soup is a concept originating from ICT's study of the Turtle Traders methodology. The premise is to fade the breakout above prior swing highs (or below prior swing lows), entering in the opposi…"
Concept predates 2017 public content. Name and basic mechanism established in early ICT private mentorship material.
ICT YT - 2024-06-24 - NQ Turtle Soup Short.srt
"See that that is actually turtle soup, and I will be teaching that in an upcoming lecture. It ain't the guy on Twitter teaching you the secrets of turtle soup."
2024 NQ live execution demonstration of Turtle Soup short. ICT demonstrates the setup on a 15-second chart using a sell-side imbalance as the entry array after a breakout failure above a consolidation high. Confirms the concept applies at the intraday level on NQ futures.
ICT YT - 2024-12-06 - Seek and Destroy Review - NQ December 05 2024.srt
"Once a range is broken out, you're going to look for either upside objective, very simple, cut and dry, draw and liquidity, or a frame of reference for potential turtle soup. One quarter of the beauty…"
2024 refinement: ICT introduces the one-quarter range extension rule as a quantitative reference for Turtle Soup consideration at range breakouts. Also clarifies that at all-time highs, the default is to remain long ('stick with going long until it proves otherwise') — Turtle Soup short at ATH requires the one-quarter extension to be met first.
Notes
The name "Turtle Soup" is ICT's inversion of the famous Turtle Traders breakout system (Richard Dennis, 1983). Where the Turtle Traders bought N-day highs, Turtle Soup fades the move above those highs — the "turtles" are being cooked. In the 2024 content, ICT references Turtle Soup as an already-known concept that he will teach more formally in an upcoming lecture (June 2024 reference). The December 2024 mention applies the one-quarter range rule specifically to NQ at the weekly level. The NQ Turtle Soup Short (June 24, 2024) is a brief live execution video (~11 minutes) that demonstrates the intraday application rather than providing a formal didactic definition. For a formal definition, the pre-2017 private mentorship content and the 2023 mentorship lectures are the primary reference sources. See also: liquidity-pool, relative-equal-highs-lows, order-block, fair-value-gap, market-maker-manipulation-template, sweep-vs-run.
Asymmetry Notes
Turtle Soup is symmetrical — the short version (fading a high breakout) and the long version (fading a low sweep) are mirrors. However, in practice, ICT most frequently demonstrates Turtle Soup shorts in the 2024 content (fading relative equal highs or range breakouts on NQ). At all-time highs, Turtle Soup shorts are lower probability — this is a structural asymmetry in that the bullish version (Turtle Soup long from a sweep of prior lows) has higher probability when the higher-timeframe trend is bullish.