Who is smart money and benefit from knowing it.British Pound/US DollarSAXO:GBPUSDDavid_PerkWhen I first started trading, I thought the market moved because there were more buyers or sellers. Charts looked random, price moved fast, and it felt like some invisible hand was playing games. Later I discovered something that changed the way I see the entire Forex market: the real liquidity isn’t controlled by retail or big players. I mean, yeah big players definitely can influence the price, and they have been manipulating markets many times and have been fined for it 100 times. But then why would they trade against each other? If they can trade through one powerful entity against us? Sounds weird, and you might be thinking, how would they do it? Here is the answer - it’s all coordinated through CLS, the Continuous Linked Settlement system. This company executes more than 80% of global FX volume. 📌 Latest total (global): ~$9.6 trillion per day (average daily turnover, April 2025) CLS trades 70% of this With such a volume, it’s worth for every FX trader to understand who this operator is and how they behave. Here are just a few banks and central banks they trade for. These are the participants who actually move price. When they transact, candles are born. And it’s actually great that it works this way, because it gives the markets structure. Imagine if all these institutions were trading against each other at different times. 📌 CLS is basically the settlement backbone for the biggest players on the planet. It handles huge volumes of currency transactions every single day. And when I say huge, I mean numbers that make our trading accounts look like pocket money. 📌CLS Time schedule CLS doesn’t follow our usual “market hours.” It runs a continuous settlement cycle from late evening to early morning based on UTC. Some of the most important liquidity transfers, netting, and rebalancing flows happen during these windows. Once I understood that, a lot of the strange behavior I used to see around midnight and early London sessions finally made sense. Price wasn’t random. It was clearing, balancing, settling positions between giants during the instruction and payment matching - Asia session. 📌 Let CLS give you signal for 2 Day Traders: Continuation or Reversal 🧪 London Continuation Bearish setup • Narrative: Asia did the manipulation → London does the continuation. • Asia session already made a manipulation into a key level • Price displaced away from that level • CIOD / OB on M15 or H1 before London open • H1: Asia runs above the stops above H1 high into a key level • It gets rejected and followed by an order block and displacement • At London open, price retraces into M15 premium key level and continues in the same direction ❌ Invalidation: the manipulation high/low from Asia session 🧪 London Continuation Bullish setup • Narrative: Asia did the manipulation → London does the continuation. • Asia session already made a manipulation into a key level • Price displaced away from that level • CIOD / OB on M15 or H1 before London open • H1: Asia runs below the stops above H1 high into a key level • It gets rejected and followed by an order block and displacement • At London open, price retraces into M15 discount key level and continues in the same direction ❌ Invalidation: the manipulation high/low from Asia session 🧪 London Reversal Bearish setup • Narrative: London performs the manipulation → price reverses. • Asia session consolidates near a higher timeframe key level • London open initiates the manipulation into the key level • Price rejects at the key level and creates an M15 order block • H1: Asia consolidates below key level • London opens, price runs Asia high into that key level • M15 breaks down → Change in order flow → clean short setup • Target: higher timeframe draw on liquidity (e.g., previous day low) ❌ Invalidation: the London session high (manipulation point) 🧪 London Reversal Bullish setup • Narrative: London performs the manipulation → price reverses. • Asia session consolidates near a higher timeframe key level • London open initiates the manipulation into the key level • Price rejects at the key level and creates an M15 order block • H1: Asia consolidates above the key level • London opens, price runs Asia high into that key level • M15 breaks up → Change in order flow → clean short setup • Target: higher timeframe draw on liquidity (e.g., previous day low) ❌ Invalidation: the London session low (manipulation point) 📌 How Manipulation Appears on the Chart After years of watching these flows, I started to notice a repeating pattern. When institutions push the market to rebalance their exposure, they often leave behind a signature on the chart. I call these CLS candles / ranges because if such a move happened, we can be sure the CLS operation, which controls a significant part of the volume, is involved. • Large real body with minimal wicks • Sudden expansion in range compared to recent candles • Strong directional close with no hesitation • Appears during key liquidity or session transitions • Breaks structure without gradual buildup • Leaves an obvious imbalance or inefficiency behind • Often follows a liquidity sweep of highs or lows • Price rarely pauses inside the candle itself • Indicates institutional execution, not retail participation 📌When I started to see this, I knew there was a new opportunity I didn’t see before, but I didn’t know how to trade it yet. It took me almost 2 years to rebuild myself around this. 📌When I stopped treating these candles as “random volatility” and instead viewed them as institutional footprints, everything shifted. These candles often form right after liquidity is taken above old highs or below old lows. It’s almost like the market sweeps the table clean before the real move starts. And when the big body candle finishes, price tends to return later to fill the gaps left behind, or 50% of such a huge candle. Same like we have Asia and London outcome based on the CLS instructions and input matching time. Same we can use on HTF. So when I get such a candle, I drop to the lower timeframe and look for the entry after the manipulation of this candle. And it all makes sense also with the market mentality of less informed traders. Why? FOMO. And that is the whole logic of the strategy. I trade that large CLS candle creation in the trend, which gives me the ability to buy lows in the uptrend and sell highs in the downtrend. 📍Downtrend - Trade stop hunts above the CLS range 📍Uptrend - Trade stop hunts below the CLS range If such a CLS candle occurs, people often want to enter the next candle and hope for continuation of the big move, but price mostly reverses to rebalance that huge imbalance which CLS created, and that is model 1, and model 2 is a piece of cake. 📍Bullish CLS continuation setups Model 1 - Entry after manipulation - 50% target Model 2 - Entry on pullback on level between 61.8 - 80% 📍Bearish CLS Continuation setups Model 1 - Entry after manipulation - 50% target Model 2 - Entry on pullback on level between 61.8 - 80% pullback. If you’ve ever felt like the market suddenly explodes, only to calmly drift back to the same zone hours later, you’re probably looking at the same thing I saw years ago. Once you start connecting these moments with global settlement flows, the chart begins to make sense in a way it didn’t before, and hence it doesn’t make sense to draw something like below to the charts. I mean, yes, sometimes these patterns can work. But it’s not the real reason why the market moved. No, it didn’t move because CLS saw cup and handle or triple top. Open your eyes and look for the big candles — that is where CLS big smart money was trading. I promised myself I’d become the person I once needed the most as a beginner. Below are links to a powerful lessons I shared on Tradingview. Hope it can help you avoid years of trial and error I went thru. 📊 Sharpen your trading Strategy ⚙️ 100% Mechanical System - Complete Strategy 🔁 Daily Bias – Continuation 🔄 Daily Bias – Reversal 🧱 Key Level – Order Block 📉 How to Buy Lows and Sell Highs 🎯 Dealing Range – Enter on pullbacks 💧 Liquidity – Basics to understand 🕒 Timeframe Alignments 🚫 Market Narratives – Avoid traps 🐢 Turtle Soup Master – High reward method 🧘 How to stop overcomplicating trading 🕰️ Day Trading Cheat Code – Sessions 🇬🇧 London Session Trading 🔍 SMT Divergence – Secret Smart Money signal 📐 Standard Deviations – Predict future targets 🎣 Stop Hunt Trading 💧Liquidity Sweep Mastery 🔪 Asia Session Setups 🧠 Level Up your Mindset 🛕 Monk Mode – Transition from 9–5 to full-time trading ⚠️ Trading Enemies – Habits that destroy success 🔄 Trader’s Routine – Build discipline daily 💪 Get Funded - $20 000 Monthly Plan 🧪 Winning Trading Plan 🛡️ Risk Management 🏦 Risk Management for Prop Trading 📏 Risk in % or Fixed Position Size 🔐 Risk Per Trade – Keep consistency Adapt useful, Reject useless and add what is specifically yours. David Perk Have a great start in to 2026