Turtle Soup Model™

Turtle Soup Model

The ICT Turtle Soup Model is a reversal-based trading strategy developed by Michael J. Huddleston, known in the trading community as the Inner Circle Trader (ICT). Rooted in the concept of stop-hunting and liquidity manipulation, this strategy seeks to exploit failed breakouts at previous swing highs or lows.

Unlike traditional breakout systems that assume continuation, the Turtle Soup setup anticipates a sharp reversal after the market takes out a widely recognized level—such as a prior high or low—and then fails to hold beyond it.

This pattern is often a sign that large institutions, or "smart money," have engineered a liquidity run to trigger retail stop orders and enter positions at more favorable prices.

The ICT version enhances the original Turtle Soup concept by incorporating market timing elements, such as specific trading sessions (e.g., London or New York), time-of-day sensitivity, and higher timeframe context.