| The sessions | Highlighter | Session Colors |
|---|---|---|
| Session colors behind the candles each session in its own color, by time | ✓ | ✓ |
| Your own session times an open and a close time you type in | ✓ | ✓ |
| Several sessions, each with its own color and strength each set on its own | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hours set up for you | ||
| Daylight saving handled give a session its home city’s clock and its hours stay right all year | ✓ | |
| Eight session presets futures, forex, stock hours, ICT killzones and the silver bullet hours | ✓ | |
| Partial sessions marked a session your chart’s hours cut short says (part) on its label | ✓ | |
| Reads the session for you | ||
| Session high and low lines they follow the session while it runs; a mid line is optional | ✓ | |
| Lines that stay after the close until the session opens again, to the current bar or to the chart’s edge | ✓ | |
| Labels with price, hours and range the range in points or ticks | ✓ | |
| Open and close lines a vertical line where each of your sessions starts and ends, beside NinjaTrader’s own trading-hours break line | ✓ | |
| Yours to set | ||
| Two ways to handle overlap mix the colors, or show the session that opened last | ✓ | |
| Four background styles and a color strip full height, two fades, or only the box between high and low | ✓ | |
| Sessions with names a name of up to 24 characters on each label | ✓ | |
| Free, with free updates no trial, no locked settings, no license key | ✓ | ✓ |
In short: NinjaTrader 8 and an intraday chart. That is all Session Colors needs.
Sessions are drawn where your chart has bars. A session outside your chart’s trading hours is not drawn; one that is only partly inside is drawn over the bars the chart has, and its label says (part). On charts of a day or longer it draws nothing.
Each one on or off, the range in ticks or points.
Choose exactly what the label shows, where it sits and how it looks.
Inside the session, until it opens again,
to the current bar, or to the right edge of the chart.
Choose the start and end time down to the minute.
Up to six sessions at the same time, each on its own clock.
Color the whole session, only between high and low, or not at all.
Vertical and horizontal lines on or off.
You might ask: why is this free, what is the catch? There is none. We want to change the market for third-party NinjaTrader tools, and giving our work away is part of how we do it.
To say it plainly: this market is overpriced and full of low-quality tools with missing features and bugs. Vendors charge hundreds of dollars for simple indicators. No indicator, add-on or tool will make you profitable. A good one makes your trading environment better, and you know that already, or you would not be here looking.
Our goal is the highest-quality products we can build, tools that make a real difference on the chart. We get there by testing hard: weeks on live charts before release, feedback from the traders who use them, and a close read of what the forums complain about. We offer a full refund within 14 days, we adapt tools for customers who ask, and we give most of our work away.
Most of our tools are free for a reason. We want you to try them, see the quality and the features for yourself, and not spend a dollar with us until you think a tool deserves it. We are a business and we intend to make money, by solving real problems for traders.
So yes, Session Colors is completely free, no strings attached. If you like it, there are more free tools and paid ones priced well under what is usual in this market. If you have any questions, please email us at support@usefulindicators.com.
No card, no license key, no expiry. Nothing to cancel because nothing was started.
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Four ways to use the sessions on a chart. Session Colors shows when each market was open and where its high and low are; the read and the trade are yours.
Asia, Europe and the US each get a color behind the candles, so one glance says where a move started and which session carried it. The color strip along the edge shows the same with the background color switched off.
A line at each session’s high and low, which follows the session while it runs. Set Line extension to ‘Until the session opens again’ and the Asia high and low stay on the chart through Europe and the US.
The ICT killzones and the three silver bullet hours are presets, with their times on New York time all year. The sessions a preset leaves free cover anything else: a lunch hour, a news window, your own trading hours.
Days to show marks the last two trading days by default, and every day on the chart at 0. With Range on the label, each session’s range is written in points or ticks, so quiet and busy sessions are easy to compare.
New to trading hours in NinjaTrader? Read our guide to trading hours and session templates →
Can’t find the answer to your question? Email us, we answer fast.
Download the zip, then in NinjaTrader 8 go to Tools → Import → NinjaScript Add-On and pick the file. Add Session Colors to an intraday chart from the Indicators window (it is SessionColors, one word, in the list). On a futures chart with its full trading hours, Asia, Europe and the US are colored on the last two trading days — it takes about a minute. The step-by-step guide covers every message NinjaTrader can show and how to update.
Genuinely free — no trial period, no locked settings, no license key, nothing to upgrade to. The download button opens a $0 checkout that asks for your name and email, no card; the download link arrives by email within minutes. News emails come only if you check the optional Insider list box at checkout. We sell other indicators; free tools like this one are how we show you the quality of the work first.
Session Colors is a trading sessions indicator for NinjaTrader 8 (NT8). It highlights each trading session on your chart in its own color — Asia, Europe and the US by default — and marks each session’s high and low with a line and a label. Vertical lines show where a session opens and closes, and a color strip along the chart’s edge shows the sessions at a glance. It is a tool for reading the chart: it gives no signals and places no orders.
Eight presets fill in the market sessions for you. Default is the futures day in three parts on New York time: Asia 18:00 to 02:00, Europe 02:00 to 09:30 and US 09:30 to 16:00. The others: Futures: Overnight + RTH (the Globex overnight session, 18:00 to 09:30, and regular hours, 09:30 to 16:00, New York time) · Asia, London, New York (the business day in each city) · Forex sessions (Sydney, Tokyo, London, New York) · Stock exchanges (the cash hours in Tokyo, London and New York) · US stock hours (pre-market, regular hours, after hours) · ICT killzones · ICT silver bullet. A preset is a starting point: names, hours and colors can be changed, and each of the six sessions is yours to set.
Yes, as two presets. ICT killzones (also written kill zones): Asia 20:00 to 00:00, London 02:00 to 05:00, NY AM 09:30 to 11:00, NY Lunch 12:00 to 13:00 and NY PM 13:30 to 16:00. ICT silver bullet: 03:00 to 04:00, 10:00 to 11:00 and 14:00 to 15:00. All are on New York time, so they stay right when the clocks change, whatever time zone your chart shows. These are common versions of the windows; if yours differ, change the hours. One thing to know: on bars longer than a window, that window can have no bar of its own and is then not drawn.
Yes. Every session has a row called Times are in: pick the session’s home city — New York, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong / Singapore or Sydney — or UTC, and its hours stay right all year on every chart, whatever time zone your chart shows. The presets come set up this way. The Default preset keeps all three of its sessions on New York time: for three to four weeks a year, while the US and Europe are on different sides of the clock change, the European market opens an hour after the Europe session starts. With My chart’s time the hours are exactly as your chart shows them, and you adjust them yourself when the clocks change. One thing to know: on the two nights a year when your chart’s own clock changes, a session with an edge inside that hour can be missing or an hour off for that night, on a market that trades through it (crypto, for example).
Yes: six sessions, each with its own switch, a name of up to 24 characters, an open and a close time, a clock, a color and a color strength. A close earlier than the open means the session runs past midnight. Start from a preset and change it, or build your own. One thing to know: picking a preset replaces all six sessions; until you press OK or Apply, Cancel brings yours back.
Yes, on each session’s label. Session name is on by default; Price (of the high and the low), Hours and Range are switches in the Session Information section, off by default. Hours writes the session’s open and close times in your chart’s time, for example 08:00-17:00; Time format writes them in 24-hour form, the default, in 12-hour form or the way your PC does. Range is the session range, from its high to its low, in points or ticks; while a session runs it grows with it. Label position puts the label on the session’s high and low lines, the default, or once at the top or the bottom of the chart.
Session Colors has 73 settings of its own, in twelve groups of its properties panel, covered here under six headings. The names in bold are the names you will see there.
Session preset fills in the sessions for you: Default (Asia, Europe and US on New York time) · Futures: Overnight + RTH · Asia, London, New York · Forex sessions · Stock exchanges · US stock hours · ICT killzones · ICT silver bullet. Change the hours or the clock of a session that is on, or switch a session on or off, and, after Apply, the box reads Custom. Days to show marks the most recent trading days: 2 by default, 0 for every day on the chart, up to 365. Time format writes the hours on a label in 24-hour or 12-hour form, or the way your PC does.
Background color (on by default) highlights each session’s hours by coloring the chart behind the candles. Style sets how: Full height, Fade from top, Fade from bottom, or Between high and low, which fills only the box from each session’s high to its low. Color strength (%), 40 by default, runs from a light tint to a strong color at 100; a white chart usually needs a little more than a dark one. Each session can be made stronger, weaker or colorless in its own section.
Session high and Session low (both on by default) draw a line at each session’s highest and lowest price; while the session runs, the lines follow it. Session mid (off by default) adds a line halfway between them. Line extension sets how far they run: inside the session only, until the session opens again, to the current bar, or to the right edge of the chart. Line style, Line width and Line strength (%) set the look; a line takes the color of its session.
Line at session open and Line at session close (both on by default, dashed) are vertical lines in the session’s color where each session opens and closes; the close line appears as the session ends on the chart. They share one line style, width and strength, separate from the high and low lines. Color strip (on by default) runs a solid strip of the session color along the chart’s edge: Position bottom or top, Height (pixels) 10 by default, Strip strength (%) 85.
Label position writes each session’s label on its high and low lines, or once at the top or the bottom of the chart. Session name is on by default; Price, Hours and Range are switches, and Range shown in picks points or ticks for the session range. Place on the line puts a label at the start or the end of its line. Text font sets font, size, bold and italic. A label is written in a shade of the session’s color that reads on your chart.
Each of the six sessions has Show this session, a Name of up to 24 characters, Opens at and Closes at (a close earlier than the open runs past midnight), a Session color and an Own color strength (% of main). Times are in picks the clock, the time zone: the session’s home city or UTC, with daylight saving handled for you, or your chart’s own time. When sessions overlap (in General) either mixes the colors or shows one session at a time, the one that opened last.
It works on intraday charts — minute, second, tick, volume, range and Renko — on any instrument and any data provider, and it needs no volume data. On charts of a day or longer it draws nothing, and a note on the chart says so. Three things to know. Sessions are drawn where your chart has bars: a session your chart’s trading hours do not have is not drawn, and one they cut short is drawn in part. On minute and second charts long bars are coarse, because a bar belongs to the session that holds its middle: on a 60-minute chart whose bars run from hour to hour, a 09:30 open counts the bar from 09:00 to 10:00. On tick, volume, range and Renko charts with evenly spaced bars (NinjaTrader’s default), a bar that lies across a session’s open or close is counted into the session, as it holds trades from both sides; the session’s color ends on that bar, where the chart’s time axis shows the close. The exception is where trading stops at the close: a pause, a holiday, a new trading day, or no bar in the half hour before it. And on Renko, Heiken Ashi and Line Break charts a session’s high and low are those of the drawn candles.
Sessions are drawn where your chart has bars. A session that lies outside your chart’s trading hours is not drawn at all. One that opens before your chart’s hours or closes after them (London on a regular-hours chart), or that was already running where the chart’s data starts, is drawn over the bars the chart has, and its label says (part): its high and low count only those bars, and it has no line at the open or the close that your chart does not have. To see it whole, use trading hours that cover it. Over the weekend two sessions next to each other can both say (part): the one that was running when the market shut on Friday and the one that had already begun when it reopened on Sunday.
You choose, in When sessions overlap. Mix the colors, the default, shows both colors blended; Show the newest session shows one color at a time, the session that opened last. That choice changes the color only: with either one a session’s high, low, range and hours count all its own hours, so the London low is London’s low, also where New York’s color is shown. The color strip always shows one session at a time, the one that opened last. Only the sessions of ‘Asia, London, New York’, ‘Forex sessions’ and ‘Stock exchanges’ overlap; on the other presets this setting changes nothing.
Yes, with Line extension. Inside the session only, the default, ends the lines at the session’s close. Until the session opens again keeps every line on the chart until the same session opens the next time, so the Asia high stays through Europe and the US. To the current bar and To the right edge of the chart run the lines of the latest sessions forward; earlier ones stay inside their session. While a session is still running, its lines follow its high and low.
Yes. Line at session open and Line at session close, both on by default and dashed, draw a vertical line in the session’s color where each session opens and where it closes; the two share one line style, width and strength, separate from the high and low lines, and the close line appears as the session ends on the chart. NinjaTrader 8’s own Trading hours break line, in a data series’ Visual settings, marks the session breaks of the chart’s trading hours, at every session or only at the end of each day, as you set it. Session Colors marks the open and the close of each session you set — Asia, Europe and US by default, or your own — wherever your chart has that open or close.
Yes. In Style, Between high and low fills only the box from each session’s high to its low; Fade from top and Fade from bottom are strong at one edge of the chart and fade out toward the other. Switch Background color off and the color strip still shows the sessions along the bottom or the top edge of the chart; for the strip alone, switch the lines off too. Every part has its own switch: the background, the strip, the high, low and mid lines, the open and close lines, and the label’s name, price, hours and range.
No. Session Colors is a chart tool: it draws on a chart and has no outputs, so NinjaTrader does not offer it for strategies or Market Analyzer columns. If you need session highs and lows as values in a strategy, tell us what you need.
It’s built lean: nothing runs on its own as ticks arrive — it works only when NinjaTrader redraws the chart, and draws only the sessions in view. One thing to know: Days to show at 0 keeps every day on the chart; on a chart with a year of data that is more to keep track of — lower Days to show if it ever feels heavy. If your chart lags with it on at a normal zoom, email us: that’s a bug, not normal.
Email support, answered by the traders who built it. Bugs get fixed — this tool gets the same updates and support as our paid indicators.
Free, no card, no license key. Download it, import it, and the sessions are colored on your chart in about a minute.
Not for you if you are looking for signals. Session Colors shows when each session traded and where its high and low are; what to do with that is yours.
Pairs well with Free previous day high and low indicator (Daily H/L Lines) · Asian range and Initial Balance indicator (SessionLevels) · Key levels indicator (Intraday Reference Levels)
Tell us what you want to see on the chart. You get a fixed price and a written plan before any work starts.
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