The Simple Liquidity Sweep Strategy I Use Every New York Open | Cole Hill

Finance-Focused Summary

Cole Hill describes a discretionary, intraday liquidity-sweep approach focused on NAS100 and US30 around the New York session. His central idea is that price often moves through clusters of traders’ stop-losses before reversing or continuing with the broader trend. He emphasizes that consistent execution and risk control matter more than the strategy alone.

Strategy Framework

• Set the broader context: Use the 1-hour chart to assess trend and price action, and the 4-hour and daily charts to identify higher-timeframe supply and demand zones. When possible, he looks for market sentiment and trend to point in the same direction.
• Mark the day’s key levels: Identify the daily high and daily low, which he treats as external liquidity. Price action and fair value gaps within those boundaries are internal liquidity.
• Wait for a sweep: Around the New York open, he looks for price to take out a prior high or low—often after Asia and London have established intraday levels—and then show signs of slowing or reversing. He describes this sequence as accumulation, manipulation, distribution.
• Use lower timeframes for execution: He monitors NAS100 and US30 on the 5-minute chart and checks the 1-minute chart for candle behavior, volume, and signs of a change in delivery. He avoids entering while a candle is still driving strongly through liquidity.
• Look for internal-range continuation setups: He uses Fibonacci retracement areas, especially 50%, 61.8%, and 78.6%, and looks for price action to confirm a reaction. His example entry is around 61.8%, with a stop slightly beyond 78.6%. He describes typical reward-to-risk as roughly 2:1 or 3:1.
• Manage exits according to price behavior: He often targets a nearby 1-minute or 5-minute moving average, local structure, or the daily high or low. He generally does not set a take-profit order in advance; instead, he monitors the trade and may trail a stop on larger moves.
• Stand aside when conditions are poor: If price is ranging, volume is weak, or the setup is unclear, he may wait rather than force a trade. For internal-range setups, he says he is more cautious immediately after the open and may wait 15–20 minutes for conditions to settle.

Risk Management and Process

• He places a stop-loss on every trade. For a daily high/low sweep, he generally puts it beyond the low or high of the relevant 1-minute candle. For the internal-range example, it sits slightly beyond the 78.6% level.
• He gives examples of stops ranging from about 5 to 30 points, depending on the setup and risk.
• He says an initial position may be capped manually at 1% risk. In one example, the initial risk is closer to 0.25%, with a second entry added after price moves away from the sweep. His examples put total risk below 1%. These figures describe his approach and are not a universal sizing rule.
• Example position-value arithmetic: A 10-lot position is described as $10 per point; a 100-point move would therefore equal $1,000 before other costs or account rules. He warns that larger sizing can quickly amplify both losses and emotional pressure.
• His stated operating rules include trading fewer setups, avoiding overtrading, reducing size when under pressure, and not increasing risk to chase losses or payouts. He says a $21,000 loss in 2022 followed overconfidence and overleveraging.

Accounts, Targets, and Reported Figures

• Hill says he prefers $100,000 prop-firm accounts over $200,000 accounts because the smaller account feels easier for him to manage psychologically. He says he typically aims for about $5,000 per account and seeks one or two payouts per week, rotating between accounts while observing a 14-day payout cycle.
• He describes trading one account at a time. If an account goes into drawdown, he continues more cautiously with reduced risk rather than abandoning it.
• He mentions having $750,000 in futures accounts, which he says he can connect through a copy trader.
• Historical results and losses are self-reported. His first US30 trade made $1,300, which he says he lost shortly afterward. He also reports losing $21,000 in a live account in 2022, recounts an unpaid $10,000 prop-firm payout, and says he generated six figures in live-account deposits and withdrawals. He distinguishes that activity from consistent profitability.
• He reports buying Ethereum at about $70 and XRP at 25. The transcript does not specify the XRP unit, though it may mean cents. He says he made multiple six figures from crypto. These are personal claims, not independently verified performance figures.

Background, Cautions, and Advice

Hill says he studied finance and investments, but argues that academic knowledge of markets and macroeconomics—including the Fed—does not substitute for trading discipline, a tested edge, and self-control. His trading history included binary options, live accounts, prop firms, and a period of trying swing and position trading before returning to a refined intraday approach.

His practical recommendations are to backtest, journal, build market experience, and avoid repeatedly switching strategies. He cautions that the New York open can be volatile, a liquidity sweep can continue rather than reverse, and waiting too long for confirmation can mean missing a fast move. He also stresses that traders should not confuse a payout or a large account balance with durable profitability.

The video does not include an explicit “not financial advice” disclaimer in the subtitles. Performance figures and trading experiences are presented as the speakers’ own accounts.

Assets, Markets, and Tools Mentioned

• Indices: NAS100, US30
• Other markets and instruments: Index futures, forex, equities/stocks, binary options, prop-firm accounts
• Crypto: Ethereum, XRP
• Trading concepts and tools: Liquidity and stop-loss sweeps; supply and demand; support and resistance; fair value gaps; Fibonacci retracements and extensions; moving averages; candlestick patterns; volume and order flow; Bollinger Bands; RSI; the ICT Silver Bullet model
• Macro reference: The Fed and macroeconomics are mentioned as background knowledge, not as a specific market forecast.

Presenters and sources: Cole Hill (Cole Hill Capital), trading guest; Millie, interviewer/host as identified in the subtitles; Alpha Group Podcast, video source.