Session range
The session range is the distance between the highest and lowest prices traded since the current session opened, measured as it develops rather than from the final extremes. It is the basis for reading where price sits within the day, and for comparing today's travel with the average range of previous sessions.
Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026
Running extremes, not final extremes
At any bar, the session high and low are the highest high and lowest low of the bars already traded since the session open. They can only expand. Using the extremes of the completed session to describe an earlier bar would be look-ahead: at that time nobody knew where the day would end. This distinction matters for any study that is later replayed or backtested.
- The session frame on CME futures starts at 17:00 Chicago time, so the overnight is part of the range from the beginning.
- The range of a completed past session is fixed and can be drawn as a level pair up to its last bar.
- While the current session is still loading, a range computed from partial bars is not the session range; showing nothing is preferable to showing a truncated one.
Three readings of the range
- A range position near 100 means the session is closing on its highs; near 0, on its lows; around 50, the day is balanced.
- An average-range projection puts a band at open ± ADR. Price cannot reach both ends, since that would need twice the average range; it is a pair of bounds, not a target.
| Reading | What it measures | Question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| High / low levels | The current extremes | Where has the day been rejected so far? |
| Range position, 0 to 100 | (close − low) / (high − low) × 100 | Is the close near the highs, the lows or in the middle? |
| Average daily range | Mean high − low of the last N sessions | Has today already travelled more than usual? |
In Senzoukria
The indicator panel provides Session High/Low in the Structure & sessions group, which draws the running extremes of each session; Session Range Position, a pane study on a 0 to 100 scale that resets at each 17:00 CT open; and Daily Range Projection in Profiles & levels, which draws ADR High and ADR Low around the session open from the mean range of the previous N sessions, twenty by default, and draws nothing until N previous sessions are loaded. The v2 indicator set also lists Session range consumption, the current loaded session range divided by the mean range of preceding loaded sessions, with a note that it is not an account loss limit. The scripting gallery includes a Session high / low template.
Common mistakes
- Mixing a regular-hours range with a full-session range when comparing to another platform.
- Reading the ADR envelope as a forecast of where the day will end.
- Building an average over a handful of sessions and treating it as a stable baseline; a short or partially loaded history biases it.
Related
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Frequently asked questions
- Why does the range position never go above 100 or below 0?
- By construction. A bar's close lies between its own high and low, and those are inside the running session extremes, so the ratio stays between 0 and 100. On the first bar of a session, when high equals low, there is no range yet and no value is produced.
- Is the session range the same as the initial balance?
- No. The initial balance is the range of a fixed window after the session or RTH open, and stops expanding when that window ends. The session range keeps expanding until the session closes.
- How many sessions should an average daily range use?
- Twenty is the common default, roughly a month of sessions. A shorter window reacts faster to a volatility change but is noisier; a longer one is steadier but slower. Whatever you pick, the projection needs that many complete previous sessions loaded before it means anything.