Optimal trade entry (OTE) is an ICT concept for a Fibonacci retracement zone — typically the 62% to 79% pullback of an impulsive move, centered on the 70.5% level — where traders aim to enter in the direction of the trend at a discounted price. The thesis is that the deepest part of a normal retracement offers the best risk-reward to join a continuation.
OTE is essentially the golden pocket framed as an entry technique and layered with extra conditions. The standard recipe waits for a displacement move, then for price to retrace into the 62–79% band, ideally with a confluence such as a fair value gap or order block inside the zone and a market-structure shift confirming the turn, before entering toward the original direction with a stop beyond the swing.
OTE is discretionary at multiple points — which impulse to measure, the exact band edges, what counts as confirmation — so it is a framework rather than a fixed signal, and definitions vary between teachers. To test it, every component (the impulse qualifier, the retracement band, the confirmation) must be pinned to exact numbers first.