Inside Bar Indicator: Formula, Settings and How to Read It

Inside Bar marks bars whose entire range sits within the previous bar's range — a high strictly below the previous high and a low strictly above the previous low. The marker is a square placed at the high, because an inside bar is a statement about range rather than direction.

Senzoukria · Indicators · Updated September 2026

Inside Bar ships with the Senzoukria desktop app, in the Structure & sessions group of the indicator catalogue. It is drawn on the price chart.

What Inside Bar measures

Both inequalities are strict, which is a deliberate rule. A high or a low that exactly equals the previous bar's is not a contraction, it is a retest of the same extreme; counting it would make markers flicker across flat overnight series where successive bars repeatedly touch the same price. The test uses the full high-to-low range, so wicks count — a bar with a small body but a wick poking past the previous high is not an inside bar. Nothing directional is derived, which is why the marker is a square and not an arrow. The first bar on the chart is never marked.

The formula, as implemented

This is not a description of how the indicator is usually defined elsewhere — it is what the shipped code computes, documented next to the implementation:

Inside bar — range entièrement contenu dans celui de la barre précédente : high[i] < high[i−1] ET low[i] > low[i−1] Inégalités STRICTES des deux côtés (règle du repo, cf. en-tête) : un high ou un low ÉGAL n'est pas une contraction, c'est un test du même extrême — le compter comme inside bar ferait clignoter le marqueur sur les séries plates de nuit. Marqueur : carré au HIGH (l'inside bar est un fait de range, pas de direction — pas de flèche). Première barre → rien.

How to read it

  • A marker means the whole auction for that bar stayed inside the boundaries the previous bar had already established.
  • Two or three inside bars in a row describe progressive contraction, with each bar narrowing inside the one before it.
  • The reference is the bar being contained, not the inside bar itself: its high and low are the levels that have so far held.
  • Expect runs of markers in low-volume hours, where narrow ranges make containment mechanically likely.
  • The marker says nothing about which way the contraction resolves; running True Range alongside it shows how compressed the bar actually was in price terms.

What it does not show

Range containment is the whole test, so a bar built on heavy two-sided trade and one built on a handful of contracts receive the same square. Quiet overnight sessions generate long sequences of markers that mostly record an absence of participation. On tick, volume or range bars, whether one bar sits inside another owes as much to how the bars were cut as to the market itself. And containment is a completed fact about a bar that has closed — it carries no direction for the expansion that follows.

Using it in Senzoukria

Add it from the Indicators panel of any footprint chart or candle chart. It runs on futures data from Rithmic or Databento and on crypto pairs from Binance and Bybit, on the same engine — the calculation does not change with the venue, only the data feeding it does. Market data subscriptions are billed by the provider, separately from the app.

See the full indicator library, or start with the order flow guide if you are new to reading aggression, delta and absorption.

Frequently asked questions

Does an inside bar still count if the high is exactly equal?
No. This indicator requires the high to be strictly below the previous high and the low strictly above the previous low. An equal extreme is treated as a retest of that price rather than a contraction inside it. The rule exists mainly to stop markers from appearing on every bar of flat, thinly traded overnight stretches where successive bars share the same high or low.
What is the difference between an inside bar and a doji?
An inside bar is defined by its range: its high and low both fall within the previous bar's. A doji is defined by its body: the open and close are close together relative to its own range, with no reference to the previous bar at all. A bar can be one, both or neither.
Why do I see so many inside bars overnight?
Overnight sessions trade in narrow ranges on low volume, so it is mechanically easy for a bar to fit inside its predecessor. The markers are correct, but they describe low participation rather than a meaningful compression of an active auction. Checking the volume on those bars before drawing conclusions is the practical response.

Keep reading

Strategy researchTest a trading strategy, from observation to challenge rulesDefine an observation, question it with the copilot, write a rule and explore costs, drawdown and fictional challenge limits in an interactive example.Quant · Start hereQuant trading for beginners: from idea to backtestDefine a testable rule, choose suitable data and evaluate later periods after costs.Order flow · HubOrder flow trading: the complete guideThe hub. What order flow is, what it shows — aggression, delta, imbalance, absorption, liquidity — and the tools that read it, each linked to a full guide.