VB: Vacuum Block
Also known as: VB, vacuum gap, runaway gap block, liquidity vacuum
What is it?
A vacuum block is the price band a market skipped so fast that almost no trading happened inside it, leaving a hollow the market tends to come back and fill. It forms on a violent one-way delivery - a rate decision, a payrolls print, a weekend gap - where price leaves one level and reappears at another without transacting in between. Say EUR/USD closes a bar at 1.0850 and the next bar opens at 1.0902.
Those 52 pips between 1.0850 and 1.0902 are the vacuum block: no buyer and no seller agreed on any price inside it. Because the band holds no completed business, ICT treats it as unfinished delivery rather than as strength. That is why a vacuum block is a magnet rather than a wall.
When price later drifts back into 1.0880, it is not failing - it is transacting in the range it originally skipped. Traders use the band as a retracement target, and the far edge of it as the level that either holds the move or exposes it. The distinction that matters is direction of expectation: an order block is a zone you expect to reject price, a vacuum block is a zone you expect price to travel through.
Why it matters: A vacuum block marks a price band the market skipped without trading, so it acts as a pullback magnet rather than a level you can expect to hold.
It changes what you do with a retracement: into an unfilled vacuum you expect continuation through the band, not a reversal off its edge.
Real-world example
EUR/USD closed a 4-hour bar at 1.0850 and reopened at 1.0902 after a rate decision. Two sessions later price traded back to 1.0868, inside the 52-pip vacuum, before continuing higher.
How SignalBots handles it
SignalBots timestamps every signal against the session it fired in, so you can see whether an entry sits inside a band price gapped over or in one it actually traded through. See /risk-warning.
Pro tip
Measure the vacuum from the prior bar's close to the next bar's open, not wick to wick - the wick-based version usually overstates the untraded band.
Common pitfalls
Treating the vacuum's edge as support. The band was skipped, so there is no resting business there to defend it, and price commonly slices straight through.
Frequently asked questions
How is a vacuum block different from a fair value gap?
A fair value gap is the imbalance left inside a three-candle sequence where the middle candle ran too fast. A vacuum block is the harder case - a genuine break in traded price between one bar's close and the next bar's open, so nothing at all changed hands inside it.
Does a vacuum block always get filled?
No. Many are filled within days, but a vacuum created by a genuine repricing - a central-bank shift, a devaluation - can stay open for months or never fill. Treat it as a probable target, not a scheduled one, and your capital is at risk either way.
Which timeframe should I mark it on?
Mark it where the gap actually exists. Weekend vacuums show on 4-hour and daily charts; news vacuums show on 5-minute and 15-minute charts and often vanish from the daily view entirely.
Can I trade the fill itself?
Some traders do, entering on the return into the band with the stop beyond its far edge. The setup only carries an edge when the wider bias supports the direction the fill points in - a fill against a strong trend is often just a pause.
Do vacuum blocks appear in crypto?
Rarely from weekends, since crypto trades continuously, but frequently from liquidation cascades where the book empties for a few seconds. Those are usually small and fill quickly.
Trading involves substantial risk of loss. Historical and backtested results do not guarantee future performance. Read the full risk warning.
