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Inversion Fair Value Gap (IFVG): when a gap flips its role

An inversion fair value gap forms when price closes through a gap and the zone changes sides. See how the engine marks an IFVG, how to trade it, and its limits.

2026-10-26 · 3 min read · by the ICC Charts team (how we write)

A fair value gap is usually treated as an area where price may react. But gaps fail too. Sometimes price does not bounce from a gap; it closes straight through it. When that happens the same zone can start to work from the other side. ICT traders call this an inversion fair value gap, or IFVG.

The idea in one picture

Think of a bullish gap as a floor that price may stand on. If price falls through the floor and closes below it, the floor is broken. A broken floor often becomes a ceiling: when price comes back up to it, sellers may defend it. The gap has flipped its role, and that flipped gap is the IFVG.

It is the same logic as support turning into resistance, applied to a gap with clear edges.

How the ICC Charts engine defines it

The engine tracks each gap through a chain of events: fresh, touched, reached its 50 % line (CE, consequent encroachment), filled, and finally inverted. A gap becomes an inversion when a candle closes beyond the far edge of the gap:

The close is what matters. A wick through the far edge is only a fill; it does not count as an inversion. In the terminal, the FVG / IFVG layer draws the boxes and the CE line, and an inverted gap is labelled with "(IFVG)" next to its BISI or SIBI tag.

Worked example

These numbers are only an illustration, on a 5-minute chart:

  1. A bullish gap forms between 2,010 and 2,013.
  2. Price returns, trades into the gap and reaches its middle, then keeps falling.
  3. A candle closes at 2,008, below the bottom of the gap. The gap is now inverted.
  4. Later, price rallies back into the 2,010 to 2,013 zone. A trader who treats it as an IFVG looks for rejection there, for example a bearish candle or a lower-time-frame shift, with a stop above the zone.

FVG, IFVG and other gaps

The Unicorn model uses a breaker overlapping a gap, so the same idea of failed zones turning around appears there too.

What makes an IFVG more useful

Common mistakes

Practise it

In the terminal, turn on the FVG / IFVG layer and scroll back through several days. Count how many gaps were inverted and what price did the next time it reached them. Some will react, some will not, and that honest count is the useful part. The free Chart Challenge and the models page are good places to keep learning.

Education only. ICC Charts is not affiliated with Inner Circle Trader (Michael J. Huddleston); these ideas are explained in our own words. An inverted gap is not a signal on its own. Trading involves risk; practise on a demo account first.

Try it on a live chart

Open ICC Charts in your browser, free, with the ICT and VSA layers and the model scanner. Or practise on past charts in the free Chart Challenge game.

Open it on the chart → Play the chart game

On MetaTrader 5? Our free FVG & order block indicator draws these zones on your MT5 charts with the same rules as ICC Charts (free account).

New articles and the daily chart challenge on Telegram → t.me/icccharts

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