Session Risk Budget Indicator: Formula, Settings and How to Read It
Session Risk Budget expresses the range the current session has produced so far as a percentage of the average range of the previous N sessions. At 100% the session has already covered what its recent reference sessions covered in full.
Senzoukria · Indicators · Updated September 2026
Session Risk Budget ships with the Senzoukria desktop app, in the Volatility group of the indicator catalogue. It is drawn in its own panel below the chart.
What Session Risk Budget measures
The numerator is the developing session range — the running high minus the running low since the session open, which the platform anchors at 17:00 Central Time. It can only grow during the session and starts again at the next open. The denominator is the mean range of the preceding completed sessions, five by default, and stays fixed for the whole session. As a reading, below roughly 40% the session has produced little of its usual range; past 100% any further movement extends beyond what the reference sessions delivered. When fewer than N prior sessions are loaded the indicator returns nothing for the entire session rather than computing a shorter base, and a zero average yields no value instead of a disguised division by zero.
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:
Session Risk Budget — quelle part de son range habituel la séance a déjà consommée, en % : budget[i] = (range COURANT de la session, jusqu'à la barre i) / (moyenne des ranges des N sessions PRÉCÉDENTES) × 100 Le numérateur est le range DEVELOPING (running high − running low depuis l'ouverture 17:00 CT, `splitSessions`) : il ne peut que croître dans la séance et repart de zéro à l'ouverture suivante. Lecture : 100 % = la séance a déjà fait son range moyen ; au-delà, on paie un mouvement déjà étendu (et la prime de suite de trend se raréfie) ; en dessous de ~40 %, il reste du budget de mouvement. D'où le nom : c'est le carburant de séance, pas une prévision. Défaut N=5 sessions (une semaine de trade) : assez court pour suivre un changement de régime, assez long pour qu'une seule journée folle ne fasse pas le dénominateur. Moins de N sessions précédentes chargées → null sur TOUTE la session (même règle de warm-up que les moyennes : une base sur 2 jours n'est pas la base 5 jours). Moyenne nulle (N sessions parfaitement plates) → null, jamais une division par zéro déguisée en 0.
How to read it
- The line only rises within a session and restarts near zero at the next open; a fall inside a session is not possible by construction.
- Reaching a high percentage early in the session describes an expansion day relative to the reference window, without saying which direction continues.
- A long flat stretch means the extremes are not being extended — price is rotating inside the range already made.
- Use it as context and as a sizing check rather than an entry trigger: it measures range consumed, not range remaining.
- A run of quiet reference sessions lowers the denominator, so an ordinary day afterwards can read high without being unusual in absolute terms.
Parameters and defaults
Reference sessions defaults to 5, about a trading week: short enough to follow a change of regime, long enough that one wild day does not define the baseline alone. It accepts 1 to 60. Fewer sessions make the baseline reactive but hostage to a single outlier; more sessions smooth it and delay its response to a genuine shift in volatility. The setting also determines how much history must be loaded before anything is plotted.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reference sessions | number | 5 | 1 – 60 |
What it does not show
The indicator is direction-blind: it knows the size of the session range, not whether price sits at the top or the bottom of it. The 100% level is a reference, not a ceiling — sessions run past it regularly. Holidays, half-sessions and low-participation days enter the average at full weight and pull the baseline down. The 17:00 CT anchor suits CME futures; instruments on a different calendar are still split at that boundary. Without N complete prior sessions in the chart, nothing is drawn at all.
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.
Related indicators
- True Range — Volatility
- Std Dev — Volatility
- Squeeze — Volatility
- Chaikin Volatility — Volatility
- Realized Vol — Volatility
- Skewness — Volatility
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
- What is a session range budget?
- It is the share of a typical session's range that the current session has already used, expressed as a percentage. The current session's high-minus-low is divided by the average high-minus-low of a set number of preceding sessions, which puts today's movement on the scale of recent normal days.
- Can a session exceed 100% of its average range?
- Yes, regularly. The denominator is an average of recent sessions, not a limit, so a trend day or a day driven by a scheduled release can print several times the reference. A reading above 100% says the move is already extended relative to recent days, and nothing more.
- Which session open does the indicator use?
- The developing range starts at the 17:00 Central Time session open used by the platform's session splitter, the standard CME futures boundary. The range accumulates from that open and starts again at the next one, so overnight movement counts toward the same session as the following day.