itradesize /\ Previous Liquidity x ICTI’d like to introduce a clean and simple RTH gap and liquidity levels indicator with additional Asian and London ranges, along with standard deviation levels and many customizable options.
Previous D/W/M highs and lows are areas where liquidity tends to accumulate. This is because many traders place stop-loss orders around these levels, creating a concentration of buy stops above the previous day's high and sell stops below the previous day's low. High-frequency trading algorithms and institutional traders often target these areas to capture liquidity.
What the indicator could show in summary?
- Regular trading hours gap with deviations
- Asia with deviations (lines or boxes)
- London with deviations (lines or boxes)
- Weekdays on chart
- 3 AM candle marker
- Previous D/W/M levels
- Important opening times (08:00, 09:30, 10:00, 14:00, 00:00, 18:00)
- Daily separators
By marking out the previous day's highs and lows, traders can create a framework for their trading day. This helps in identifying potential setups and understanding where significant price action might occur. It also aids in filtering out noise and focusing on the most relevant price levels.
These levels can also act as potential reversal points. When the market reaches a previous high or low, it might reverse direction, especially if it has raided the liquidity resting there. This concept is part of a strategy where traders look for the market to raid these levels and then reverse, providing trading opportunities
The indicator shows previous liquidity levels on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It also displays opening times at 8:30, 9:30-10:00, 14:00-00:00, and 18:00. Opening times are crucial in trading because they help define specific periods when market activity is expected to be higher, which can lead to better trading opportunities. The script has been made mostly for indices.
You can create various entry and exit strategies based on the indicator. Please remember, that adequate knowledge of ICT is necessary for this to be beneficial.
You might wonder why only these times are shown. This is because these are the times when the futures market is active or should be active. It's important to note that opening times can vary between different asset classes.
18:00 A new daily candle open
00:00 Midnight open
02:00 New 4-hour candle open
08:30 High-impact news
09:30 NY Equities open
10:00 New 4-hour candle open
The concept of "Asian Killzone Standard Deviations" involves using the Asian trading session's price range to project potential price movements during subsequent trading sessions, such as the London or New York sessions. This is done by calculating standard deviations from the Asian range, which can help traders identify potential support and resistance levels.
You can create a complete model by exclusively focusing on the Asian time zone. Deviations within this zone may have varying impacts on future price movements, and the Interbank Price Delivery Agreement (IPDA) often reflects Asia's high, close, and low prices.
A similar approach can be taken with the London time zone. The standard deviation levels within each zone could potentially serve as support or indicate reversals, including liquidity hunts. It's important to backtest these ideas to gain reliable insights into when and where to apply them.
* Asian Range: This is the price range established during the Asian trading session. It serves as a reference point for calculating standard deviations.
* London Range: The same applies to the London range as well. Combine standard deviation projections with other technical analysis tools, such as order blocks or fair value gaps, to enhance accuracy.
* Standard Deviations: These are statistical measures that indicate the amount of variation or dispersion from the average. In trading, they are used to project potential price levels beyond the current range.
You can also use regular trading hours gap as a standalone model. The 4 STDV and 2.5 STDV levels are important for determining the high or low of the current price action.
The RTH gap is created when there is a difference between the closing price of a market at the end of one trading day and the opening price at the start of the next trading day. This gap can be upward (gap higher), downward (gap lower), or unchanged. It is significant because it often indicates market sentiment and can create inefficiencies that traders look to exploit.
Alternatively, you can combine these elements to create a complete strategy for different scenarios.
Rthgap
ICT Opening Range GapOpening Range Gap
The Opening Range Gap, also known as the Regular Trading Hours (RTH) Gap, is the distance between the first opening tick of a session and the previous session's close, when looking at a chart's Regular Trading Hours (not to be confused with Electronic Trading Hours). This gap is an important element for Futures Market traders that follow the works of The Inner Circle Trader (ICT). To be more specific, the Opening Range Gap occurs between 4:15pm and 9:30am of the next day.
The Opening Range Gap can be viewed easily when switching the session type to "Regular trading hours".
The image above shows an example of an RTH Gap for Wednesday, June 12, 2024 in CME_MINI:ES1!
How To Use Opening Range Gap
The Opening Range Gap can be used like any other form of a gap by extending it into future price action and looking for it to be filled on the same day or the upcoming days.
Looking for 50% of the gap to be filled as an initial target is one of the methodologies taught by ICT. Additionally, the high and low of the gap (as well as the midpoint) can be used as points of dynamic support & resistance, even if the gap is already filled. Therefore, these gaps do not "expire", and they can be used as key price levels extended through to the end of the week.
Disclaimer
This indicator is mainly intended to work for Futures markets, and specifically the following Index Futures markets: E-mini S&P 500 Futures, E-mini NASDAQ-100 Futures, E-mini DOW Futures.
Given that, the indicator still supports various other markets/assets out-of-the-box, such as other types of Futures Markets, Stocks, Options, and more. The main difference will be that other markets may have RTH Gaps forming at different times, rather than the 4:15pm-9:30am gap that occurs in the Index Futures (Regular trading hours).
Indicator Purpose
While RTH Gaps can be labeled by hand, this indicator allows you to quickly plot multiple RTH Gaps and get a quick glimpse at potential gaps that you may have missed, which could end up being useful in your analysis.
This indicator is 100% custom-built, not using code from any other existing indicators that may plot Opening Range Gaps. The main purpose of this indicator was to overcome many shortcomings from other existing indicators, most notably the problem of displaying RTH Gaps while using ETH as the chart session.
Therefore, this indicator has many UNIQUE features, such as:
Ability to maintain accuracy of the closing/opening prices even when changing chart settings (e.g., toggling ETH/RTH sessions, toggling BACK-ADJUSTMENT on futures contracts, toggling SETTLEMENT prices, etc.).
Draw up to 25 previous Opening Range Gaps, even on ultra-low timeframes like the 1-minute or 1-second chart.
Automatically or manually choose which Opening Range Gaps to hide/show on the chart.
Highly customizable, including a different color scheme to easily distinguish between the Current and Previous RTH Gaps.
Modified price values to correctly display prices that use a format like 109'32 (e.g., Bond Futures or Wheat Futures).
Helpful tooltips to provide more detailed information about the RTH Gaps or about the current Input Settings.
Error Messages
There are some conditions which can cause the script to fail and display an error message (by clicking the red exclamation mark next to the indicator.)
Error messages:
Use a Standard Chart Type : this will occur when using a non-standard chart such as Heikin Ashi, Renko, Point & Figure, etc.
Use a Daily or Lower Timeframe : this error will appear when using a higher timeframe chart like weekly or monthly, because it can clutter the chart since RTH Gaps can form every day.
RTH Gap was not detected : this means that no RTH gap was found, which will occur on markets that don't have the option to toggle between ETH and RTH sessions (e.g., Forex or Crypto).
Exceeded the maximum lookback for Bar Replay mode : when using bar replay mode; this can depend on the amount of historical bars available in different account subscription types.
Unable to Activate Bar Replay mode : if the indicator could not be used in Bar Replay mode.
Restart Bar Replay : if the indicator works in Bar Replay but it detected an error that would cause RTH Gaps to be plotted incorrectly.
This is an example of what a script error would look like.
Indicator Settings
Most settings are self-explanatory or have a tooltip with information on what the setting does, but this section will only briefly cover the available settings.
Extend to End of Day : This setting is enabled by default. It will extend each RTH Gap only up to the end of its day (specifically, to the RTH close of the day). The option can be toggled OFF to automatically extend all RTH Gaps to the right-most candle on the chart.
Previous RTH Gaps : Between 1 and 25 previous RTH Gaps can be displayed. The checkbox can be toggled to quickly hide all previous RTH Gaps (but the same effect would be reached by setting the value to 0).
Hide Current RTH Gap : The Current RTH Gap (most recent one), can be optionally hidden from being plotted.
Beginning Anchor Point : Choose the beginning anchor point for all RTH Gaps. The default is "RTH Close", which means that each gap will be drawn on the chart starting from their previous session's RTH close @ 4:15pm. But it will be a more transparent version of the actual gap; this ghost-like image will extend from 4:15pm all the way up to 9:30am where the gap will then be drawn normally from 9:30am onwards. The other option for this setting is "RTH Open" which means that the gap will be drawn starting from the actual 9:30am opening.
Current RTH Gap Style
These settings are used to customize the visual style of the most recent RTH Gap (also known as the "Current" RTH Gap). Note: the exact same set of settings are available for the Previous RTH Gaps. The text label next to each gap can be optionally hidden to clean the chart a little.
Price Table
These are settings to customize the appearance of the Price Table on the right, including the ability to hide it completely. Note: to actually use the color configurations, you must select "Custom Style" in one of the dropdowns, otherwise it will use "Default Style" which means that the Price Table is automatically styled based on the colors chosen in the Current RTH Gap Style and Previous RTH Gap Style settings.
Overlap Handling
One of 7 available overlap handling options can be used to filter which RTH Gaps are plotted on the chart. By default, the "None" option will be selected, meaning that all valid RTH Gaps are plotted on the chart.
Formatting
Date Format : select the format of the date that is shown next to each RTH Gaps.
Timezone : choose the timezone for the RTH Gap closing/opening date-times that are displayed (only in tooltips when you hover over an RTH Gap label).
RTH Gap Label : choose the details to display next to each gap (e.g., date, or gap number, or both).
Price Format : only two options: Auto/Decimal. "Auto" uses custom processing to allow displaying values such as 109'32 for Bond futures.
Tooltips
The indicator provides additional details about an RTH Gap when you hover over a row in the Price Table.
Note: the same information can be found by hovering over the Text Label that is to the right of each RTH Gap (even when the Text Label is disabled via the Settings).
Overlap Handling
The tooltip next to "Select a Strategy" in the options will provide details on each overlap handling strategy. Additionally, when a strategy is selected, a new row in the Price Table will appear; hovering over that will show details about the currently selected strategy, as well as any suggestions in case the inputs were invalid. When a strategy hides an RTH Gap, the number in the Price Table will be replaced with an "Eye" icon, indicating that it is not currently plotted on the chart.
Available strategies are:
Option 1 (Gradients) : select the percentage opacity to shade RTH Gaps in. The more recent RTH Gaps will be closer to the maximum opacity defined, while the older RTH Gaps will appear more transparent, closer to the minimum opacity defined. Note: only affects previous RTH Gaps, not the current RTH Gap.
Option 2 (Day Extension) : select the number of days to extend each RTH Gap up to. Note: this will override the "Extend to End of Day" setting, regardless whether it is toggled ON or OFF.
Option 3 (Nested Gaps) : hides nested gaps, i.e., RTH Gaps that are enclosed within another RTH Gap. Note: this option is only available when the "Extend to End of Day" setting is disabled .
Option 4 (Intersecting Gaps) : hides intersecting/overlapping gaps, i.e., RTH Gaps that overlap one another (this may also include, but is not limited to, nested gaps). The drop-down next to this option allows choosing the priority of which RTH Gaps to hide first. Note: this option is only available when the "Extend to End of Day" setting is disabled .
Option 5 (Gap Width) : the chart will only show RTH Gaps that have a width/size between the defined parameters.
Option 6 (Close Proximity) : the chart will only show the RTH Gaps that are within a certain range from the market price. This can be useful when plotting multiple RTH Gaps while using auto-scaling on the chart. By only showing nearby RTH Gaps, it will prevent the auto-scaling from having to compress the candles to fit the far-away RTH Gaps onto the screen.
Option 7 (CSV) : this option is used if none of the others suit you well; it allows specifically choosing which RTH Gaps to hide or show on the chart.
This is an example that chooses the Overlap Handling Strategy Option 6. Note that in this example, the tooltip in the price table shows a warning that the Input Number should be increased to plot some RTH Gaps on the chart.
Tips
Chart settings can be toggled to "Scale price chart only" to prevent the auto-scaling of TradingView from compressing the chart if there are RTH Gaps that are far away from the current market action.
If you change a lot of indicator settings such as RTH Gap color schemes, you can save the settings as the Default to prevent your settings from resetting the next time you use the indicator.
