How Far Has the Day Already Gone? Reading the Daily Range Ladder, Built From the Symbol's Own Range

Fifty points is a quiet morning on one symbol and a day's work on another. A percentage threshold has the same problem from the other side: half a percent is a real day's work for a major currency pair and almost nothing for a crypto symbol. Before deciding whether a move is strong, stretched or just getting started, it helps to measure it in the symbol's own units: how far does this market usually travel in a day, and how much of that has today already used? Daily Range Ladder answers that on the chart.

What the levels are

The average daily range, call it A, is the simple average of the true range of the last six finished daily bars, with true range taking the previous close into account. Three resistance levels are drawn above the day's low, at the low plus 1.0, 1.8 and 2.6 times A. Three support levels are drawn below the day's high, at the high minus the same multiples. Prices are rounded to the digits of the symbol.

All six levels move with the day. When the day sets a new low, the three upper levels move down with it; when it sets a new high, the three lower levels move up. Each line spans the whole trading day.

How to read the ladder

Early in the day, while the range is still small, the levels sit far from the market. As the day's range grows, the nearest levels come closer. When price reaches the first upper level, the distance from the day's low to the price is exactly one average daily range. The second and third levels mark a day that has already covered 1.8 and 2.6 times its usual distance.

In plain terms, that is how to read any intraday move. A trend that has just cleared the previous day's high but sits well below the first level has so far used less than one average daily range. A move that is pressing against the second or third level belongs to a day that has done much more than usual. It tells you distance, not where price stops. Some days stop at the first level, some run through all three; the levels only tell you where today stands against the symbol's own history.

Where this fits in the workflow

The routine this series describes uses distance in two places. On the trend side, the trigger asks for a meaningful move from the previous close; Signal Confirm expresses that as a percentage that you adjust per market. The daily ladder shows a related measure, the day's range so far, in the symbol's own units, which makes it easier to compare a currency pair with a metal or an index on the same screen.

On the reversal side, the routine grades a turn by how many facts line up: a stretched market, a level where price turned before, and a pattern. A day pressing against its upper levels is stretched in range terms. The level where price turned before comes from the left side of the chart, which is what Range Zones M30 draws, and the pattern decides. The full checklist is in the Range Zones M30 article.

Settings

AtrDays sets how many finished daily bars go into the average, six by default. Mult1, Mult2 and Mult3 set the three distances, 1.0, 1.8 and 2.6. The colours and the line width are inputs, and ExtendDay chooses between a line across the whole day and a short line around the latest tick. On daily and weekly charts a day is a single candle, so the indicator is meant for intraday charts. It reads only the daily bars the terminal already has and does not touch orders.

Daily Range Ladder does not call trades and cannot predict where price will stop. It measures distance; what that distance means today is your call. For the dynamic reference used for stops and trailing exits, see Volatility Dots; the whole routine, including risk limits, is in the strategy article.