Judas Swing

A Judas swing is a deceptive early-session price move — commonly discussed around a session open — that pushes in one direction, draws participants in, and then reverses hard once real volume actually arrives. The name (from the biblical betrayer) is doing the same job the term inducement does elsewhere: describing a move that misleads before the real one shows up, specifically framed around the open of a session rather than any particular level.

The reasoning traders give for why this happens around opens specifically: thinner liquidity right at the open makes it easier for a smaller amount of volume to push price further than it would during a fuller session, and early participants reacting to that push are exactly the positioning a real move can reverse against once deeper liquidity arrives. This is part of why LiquidityLevels frames each session's opening tone the way it does — a fast move in the first minutes isn't automatically the direction that holds.