Session levels are the highs and lows of earlier trading sessions that traders use as reference prices: the prior regular session (09:30–16:00 ET), the overnight session (18:00–09:30), Asia (18:00–02:30), London (03:00–09:30), premarket (04:00–09:30) and the initial balance (09:30–10:30).
The levels and their times (US Eastern)
- Prior-day high, low and close — the previous regular session, 09:30–16:00
- Overnight high and low — the Globex session from 18:00 to the 09:30 open
- Asia range — 18:00–02:30
- London range — 03:00–09:30
- Premarket range — 04:00–09:30
- Initial balance — the first hour, 09:30–10:30
- Prior week and prior month high and low
Why traders watch them
Many participants place orders and stops around the same obvious prices, so price often reacts near them — sometimes reversing, sometimes accelerating through. The levels tell you where a reaction is likely, not which way it will go.
What held up in our testing
- Fading every touch of a level, or buying every reclaim, did not produce an edge on its own across 12 years of NQ data.
- A sweep-and-reclaim of the prior day's regular-session high or low — price pokes beyond it and closes back inside — was the one level-based fade that held up, and only at those prior-day extremes.
- Using levels as profit targets didn't help either: big winners tended to run straight through them.
Time zones matter: if your chart is set to a different time zone, an indicator must convert to Eastern time to get these windows right.