Yesterday’s levels
Today’s current levels
The opens
| The key levels | Basic tool | Reference Levels |
|---|---|---|
| Previous-day high, low, close and open of the session your template defines | ✓ | ✓ |
| Previous-day midpoint the line price measures the range against | ✓ | |
| Today’s open, high and low live, from the session’s first bar | ✓ | ✓ |
| Today’s midpoint, live rolling into tomorrow’s previous-day levels | ✓ | |
| Weekly open at the week’s first bar the Sunday 18:00 ET reopen on futures, Monday’s open on RTH and stock charts | ✓ | |
| New York midnight open Eastern by default; exchange or local time if you prefer | ✓ | |
| Correct by design | ||
| No repaint a level locks the moment it is known | ✓ | ✓ |
| Never fabricates no level rather than a wrong one | ✓ | |
| Reads your session template yesterday is your session, RTH or the full Globex day | ✓ | |
| Readable | ||
| Labels that never overlap auto-spaced, however tight the cluster | ✓ | |
| Name, price or both five label modes, three placements | ✓ | |
| On-chart info box every active level in one corner | ✓ | |
| Yours to set | ||
| Every line its own color, style and width with an opacity slider | ✓ | ✓ |
| The reach of the lines, one switch for all right ray, full width, to the current bar, or off | ✓ | |
| Everything adjustable 44 settings across 14 groups | ✓ | |
In short: NinjaTrader 8, a chart with a few days of history and a single-session template. That is all Intraday Reference Levels needs.
Use a single-session template: on a template with two session blocks in one day the levels follow each block, which is almost never what you want. The midnight open needs a full-day template with a bar at midnight.
Yesterday’s five, today’s four, plus the weekly and midnight opens. Six on by default.
Rays from the session that set them, across the whole chart, or only to the current bar.
Color, width, style and opacity per level. Name, price or both, boxed or plain.
Tick, minute, volume, range or Renko bars. Futures, stocks, FX and crypto. Not daily.
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Four ways to read the levels the market already watches. None of them is a signal; the entries, the stops and the discipline are still yours.
Open the chart and the session is already framed: yesterday’s high, low and close, today’s open and, on a full-day template, the midnight open. The first read of the morning, before a single trade.
Yesterday’s high and low are among the most-watched lines in day trading. A rejection there is a fade; a clean break and hold is expansion. Either way, the line was on your chart before it happened.
Above the New York midnight open, price is up on the day from where it began; below, it is down. One line that tells you which side of the daily auction you are trading on.
Today’s midpoint updates live as the session trades: a natural intraday reference for which half of the range you are in.
New to trading key levels? Read the full guide →
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Download the zip after checkout, then in NinjaTrader 8 go to Tools → Import → NinjaScript Add-On and pick the file. Add Intraday Reference Levels to any chart from the Indicators list and the levels draw at once — most traders are done in under a minute. The step-by-step guide covers every message NinjaTrader can show and the update rule.
Eleven, in three groups. Yesterday: high, low, close, open and midpoint. Today, live: the session open, then a developing high, low and midpoint; all four become tomorrow’s previous-day levels when the next session opens. The opens: the weekly open at the first bar of the week (the Sunday 18:00 ET reopen on a futures template, Monday’s open on RTH and stock charts) and the New York midnight open. Six are on by default — yesterday’s high, low and close, today’s open, high and low — and every one has its own switch.
The one your chart’s trading-hours template defines. On an RTH template, yesterday is the cash-hours block that template sets; on a full Globex template it is the whole 23-hour day. On a template with two session blocks in one day the levels follow each block, which is almost never what you want — pick a single-session template and the levels follow that session exactly.
No. Every level locks the moment it is known — the close at the close, the open at the first trade — and a level shown on a past bar stays where it was. Today’s high, low and midpoint move while the session trades, because that is what a developing range does; they never move backwards in history.
Because the indicator would rather draw nothing than draw a wrong line. The usual reasons: the chart holds too little history (load a few days and the previous-day levels appear at once); the weekly open was switched on mid-week — it waits for the next week to begin rather than show a mid-week price, and it needs the bars back to the week’s first session loaded; or the midnight open is on but the template is RTH-only, so there is no bar at midnight to read. The info box lists every level it does have.
No, and we won’t pretend it is. These are the reference prices the whole market watches, drawn correctly and on time. What price does at them, and what you do about it, is the trade — and that stays yours.
No. Intraday Reference Levels never touches your orders, positions or account. It draws on the chart — every order is yours to place, in your own order-entry window, exactly as before.
Each one is a numbered group in the settings panel, with its own line, label and on/off switch. The codes below are the codes on the chart and the titles of their groups in the panel; the other names in bold are the panel’s own.
PDH, PDL, PDC, PDO and the midpoint PDM are the previous session’s high, low, close, open and mid — the session your trading-hours template defines. Each is its own numbered group with Show Line (On/Off), a Line setting (color, width, dash) and Show Label (On/Off). They lock when that session closes and stay where they were, so yesterday’s five are today’s reference from the first bar.
Session Open is set at the session’s first bar; TDH, TDL and TDM develop as the session trades, moving with every new high and low and holding the midpoint between them. When the next session opens, today’s four roll into tomorrow’s previous-day levels. The same three switches apply to each: the line, its style, its label. Daily and higher charts get a warning instead of a wrong line, because these levels are intraday by definition.
MNO is the ICT true-day open: the price at 00:00 in the MNO Timezone, Eastern by default (00:00 New York, the ICT standard), or Exchange or Local. It is off by default and switches on in its own group, with the same line style and label switches as every other level. WO marks the week’s first bar and holds all week, so the weekly open is one line, not a calculation.
Show Labels is the master switch; Label Content is NameAndPrice (PDH 5247.50, the default), the code only, the full name and price, the full name, or the price only; Vertical Placement puts the label above, on or below the line; the font, the text color and an optional Show Label Box with its box color style it. Show Info Box lists every active level’s price in the chart corner you pick under Position.
Line Extension is one setting for the whole set: RightRay projects each level from its origin bar to the right edge (the recommended default), FullWidth spans the whole chart, ToCurrentBar stops at the current bar, and None hides the lines and keeps only the labels. Each level keeps its own Line color, width and style, so a previous-day close can be bold and a midpoint faint, and a level you never use is one switch away from gone.
The levels are the session your Trading Hours template defines: on CME US Index Futures RTH they are the cash session’s, on an ETH template the Session Open is the Globex open and the previous-day levels cover the whole overnight-to-close session. Switch the template and every level follows, with nothing to re-enter. Time zones are the template’s own, so a chart in Oslo or Sydney draws the same New York levels.
It’s built lean — a tick costs a couple of comparisons, only a new high, a new low or a session boundary redraws a line, and the label text is cached. If your chart ever lags with it on, email us: that’s a bug, not normal.
Email support, answered by the traders who built it. Bugs get fixed, and updates are free.
Yes. NinjaTrader 8 ships Prior Day OHLC (yesterday’s open, high, low and close) and Current Day OHL (today’s open, high and low, live), and they are worth trying first. What Intraday Reference Levels adds is the whole set in one indicator: the previous-day midpoint, today’s midpoint, the weekly open and the New York midnight open, with codes and prices on every label and one line-extension setting for all eleven. The guide compares the built-ins level by level.
This is one. MNO draws the midnight open at 00:00 New York by default — the ICT true-day open — and its MNO Timezone setting can switch to the exchange’s zone or your local one. It is off by default; switch it on in its own settings group.
It draws the ICT midnight open in New York time, which is the reference ICT traders use most. It does not draw killzones, fair value gaps or order blocks — those are different tools. For session ranges such as the Asian and London sessions, see the session levels indicator.
No. Overnight levels can only be measured when the overnight bars are on the chart, which on a regular-hours template they are not, so this version leaves them out rather than draw a wrong line. Our free overnight high low indicator draws the overnight and premarket high and low, with the midpoint, on a full-session chart. On an ETH template the Session Open is the Globex open. For the Asian, London and pre-market ranges as separate levels, the session levels indicator draws them.
It draws the fixed reference prices the whole market watches as support and resistance — the previous day’s high, low, close and open, today’s open and the midnight and weekly opens. It does not compute swing highs and lows or dynamic support and resistance from price structure.
Yes. Line Extension is one setting for the whole set: RightRay runs each level from its origin bar to the right edge (the default), FullWidth spans the whole chart, ToCurrentBar stops at the current bar, and None hides the lines and keeps only the labels. Each level still has its own Line color, width and style.
PDH, PDL, PDC and PDO are the high, low, close and open of the previous session as your trading-hours template defines it: the cash-hours block on an RTH template, the whole Globex day on a full-session template. PDM is halfway between the high and the low, rounded to the tick.
The open locks at the first trade of the session, the close at the last. Today’s high, low and midpoint extend while the session trades, and become tomorrow’s previous-day levels when the next session opens. A level shown on a past bar stays exactly where it was.
NinjaTrader stamps a bar by its close, so the bar that crosses midnight opened before it: the midnight open is the open of the next bar. Eastern by default; exchange or local time if you prefer. It needs a full-day template with a bar at midnight. The weekly open is the first bar of the week: the Sunday 18:00 ET reopen on a futures template, Monday’s open on RTH and stock charts.
| Level | Rule | From | Value | Locks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PDH | highest trade of the previous session | yesterday | 7595.00 | at yesterday’s close |
| PDL | lowest trade of the previous session | yesterday | 7516.00 | at yesterday’s close |
| PDC | last trade of the previous session | yesterday | 7586.25 | at yesterday’s close |
| PDO | first trade of the previous session | yesterday | 7516.25 | at yesterday’s open |
| PDM | (PDH + PDL) ÷ 2, rounded to the tick | yesterday | 7555.50 | at yesterday’s close |
| MNO | open of the first bar that opens at or after 00:00 ET | overnight | 7583.50 | at that bar |
| TDO | first trade of today’s session (“Session Open” on the chart) | today | 7588.00 | at the open |
| TDH | highest trade so far | today | 7628.75 | moves up only, until the close |
| TDL | lowest trade so far | today | 7552.25 | moves down only, until the close |
| TDM | (TDH + TDL) ÷ 2, rounded to the tick | today | 7590.50 | follows the range |
When the next session opens, today’s open, high, low and midpoint become PDO, PDH, PDL and PDM without a reload. The weekly open (WO) is the first bar of the week and holds all week.
A level is drawn the moment it is known and never redrawn behind you. Scroll back a week and every line sits where it sat live. The only lines that move are today’s developing high, low and midpoint: the high and low move outward only, and the midpoint moves with them.
If the chart does not hold the bars a level needs — too little history, a weekly open before the loaded week — the line is left off rather than estimated. The weekly open switched on mid-week waits for the next week to begin. A missing line costs you a glance; a wrong one costs you a trade.
The midnight open is judged in New York time by default — so a trader in Oslo and a trader in Chicago get the same line. Exchange time and local time are there for markets where those are the convention. It needs a full-day template: on an RTH-only template there is no bar at midnight, and the line is left off.
When three levels land within a few ticks, their labels are spaced apart automatically while the lines stay exactly at their prices. Name, price or both; above, on or below the line; with or without a box.
This is the actual settings panel in NinjaTrader — the groups numbered in the panel, plain-English names, no cryptic abbreviations. Every row in the table below is one of these; each level is its own group with a line switch, its style and a label switch. Today’s open (TDO elsewhere on this page) is the “Session Open” group.
| Setting | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|
| General | ||
| Line Extension | Right Ray | Right Ray · Full Width · To Current Bar · None |
| Labels | ||
| Show Labels | On | On · Off |
| Font | Arial 12 | Any font |
| Label Content | Name And Price | Name And Price · Name Only · Full Name And Price · Full Name · Price Only |
| Vertical Placement | Above Line | Above Line · On Line · Below Line |
| Text Color | White | Any color |
| Show Label Box | Off | On · Off |
| Box Color | #000000 at 78% | Any color |
| PDH (Prev Day High) | ||
| Show Line | On | On · Off |
| Line | #3CC83C at 78% · Solid · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| PDL (Prev Day Low) | ||
| Show Line | On | On · Off |
| Line | #D23C3C at 78% · Solid · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| PDC (Prev Day Close) | ||
| Show Line | On | On · Off |
| Line | #326EDC at 86% · Solid · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| PDO (Prev Day Open) | ||
| Show Line | Off | On · Off |
| Line | #AF5FEB at 86% · Solid · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| PDM (Prev Day Mid) | ||
| Show Line | Off | On · Off |
| Line | #969696 at 51% · Solid · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| Session Open | ||
| Show Line | On | On · Off |
| Line | #F5C300 · Solid · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| TDH (Today’s High) | ||
| Show Line | On | On · Off |
| Line | #32E632 · Dash · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| TDL (Today’s Low) | ||
| Show Line | On | On · Off |
| Line | #E63232 · Dash · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| TDM (Today’s Mid) | ||
| Show Line | Off | On · Off |
| Line | #969696 at 59% · Solid · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| WO (Weekly Open) | ||
| Show Line | Off | On · Off |
| Line | #FF9100 at 90% · Solid · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| MNO (Midnight Open) | ||
| Show Line | Off | On · Off |
| MNO Timezone | Eastern | Eastern · Exchange · Local |
| Line | #C88CFF at 78% · Solid · 2 px | Any color, style and width |
| Show Label | On | On · Off |
| Info Box | ||
| Show Info Box | Off | On · Off |
| Position | Bottom Left | Bottom Right · Bottom Left · Top Right · Top Left |
Ranges are printed only where the indicator enforces one. Line colors carry their default opacity; every color setting accepts any color.
The indicator listens to every tick because today’s high and low can change on any of them, but a tick costs a couple of comparisons: only a new high, a new low or a session boundary redraws a line. Label text and widths are cached until a setting changes; only the spacing between labels is recomputed as the chart moves. If your chart ever lags with Intraday Reference Levels on, that is a bug and we want to hear about it.
Which trades belong to “yesterday” and “today” comes from your chart’s trading-hours template, so the levels follow the session you trade, not the clock on the wall. The midnight open has its own zone setting: Eastern (00:00 New York, the default), the exchange’s zone, or your local zone. Keep NinjaTrader’s time zone on System Default (Tools → Options): on a custom display zone the Eastern and Exchange options are off by the difference between that zone and your PC clock, and only the Local option then judges midnight in the zone the chart is drawn in.
Intraday Reference Levels makes no network connection of its own. Everything it draws comes from the bars already on your chart. Nothing about your charts or your trades is sent anywhere, and there is no telemetry. The only check is NinjaTrader’s own license verification of your NinjaTrader account, done by the platform, the same as for every licensed add-on.
Fourteen days, every setting, no card. It switches itself off, and if you keep it, it is $39 once and yours to keep.
Not for you if you want the tool to tell you what price will do at a level. Intraday Reference Levels draws the reference prices correctly and on time; the reaction, and the trade, are yours.
Pairs well with News indicator and economic calendar (Futures News Indicator) · Free VWAP indicator · Free initial balance indicator (Live IB Range) · Risk reward tool for Chart Trader (ATM Risk Reward) · Free previous week high and low indicator (Weekly H/L Lines) · Free monthly high and low indicator (Monthly H/L Lines)
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