THE LEXICON · DRAWING A FIB ON A RANGE
How to draw a fib on a dealing range
A fib across a range is two clicks. Getting the two clicks right — the correct high, the correct low, in the correct order — is the whole skill. This is the routine on TradingView, and the three mistakes that quietly move every level on the chart.
Before the first click
Set the chart's time zone to New York, using the time-zone control at the bottom right of the chart or the chart settings. Then switch the chart to 1 minute. The range being measured is the NQ overnight dealing range: the highest high and lowest low printed between 18:45 and 22:03 ET. On a 1-minute chart that means the bars from the one stamped 18:45 through the one stamped 22:02.
Step by step
1. Find the extremes. Scroll to the window and read the highest high and lowest low from the bars inside it. The crosshair and the data window show each bar's high and low exactly; do not estimate from the candle bodies.
2. Pick the tool. Choose Fib Retracement from the Fibonacci group in the left toolbar. Turn on the magnet in the same toolbar so each click snaps to a bar's actual high or low instead of wherever the cursor happened to be.
3. Click in the right order. TradingView puts level 1 at the first click and level 0 at the second. For a long orientation, click the low first and the high second: 0 sits at the high, the retracement runs down, and the pocket lands in the lower half. For a short orientation, click the high first and the low second. The Reverse checkbox in the settings flips a drawing that went in backwards.
4. Set the levels. Double-click the drawing to open its settings. Keep 0, 0.382, 0.5, 0.618 and 1. Add 0.66 to close the golden pocket, and 0.705 and 0.79 if the deeper OTE band is wanted — ICT's 0.79 is the rounder cousin of the default 0.786. Switch off the extension levels above 1 if they are not used.
5. Carry it forward. Enable Extend lines right so the levels reach into the session, then lock the drawing so a stray drag cannot move an anchor. Drawings are pinned to price and time, so the fib stays where it is when the chart goes back to 5 or 15 minutes.
Mistake one: the wrong anchor
The high of the Globex session, a wick from 22:10, a swing that looks like the range — each produces a different fib, and every level on it moves with the anchor. The 0.618 of a range drawn two points too wide is not the 0.618 of the range. Anchor to the two prices the window printed and nothing else.
Mistake two: drawing on the chart timeframe
Measure the range on a 15-minute chart and the bar that opens at 22:00 carries fourteen minutes of trade after the window closed; its high can become the range high without belonging to it. Measure on 1 minute, anchor there, and only then change timeframe. The drawing survives the switch. The measurement does not survive being taken on the wrong bars.
Mistake three: flipping on every touch
Price crosses the 0.5 and the fib gets reversed. It crosses back and gets reversed again. Each flip moves the pocket into the other half of the range, so the chart shows a different set of levels every hour. Decide the orientation once — from the side of equilibrium price closed the window on — and change it only after a bar closes a set distance through the 0.5, not on a wick.
What the drawing is for
Done correctly, the drawing is a map of one range, finished before the day starts, the same for anyone who measures it. It is not a signal and it does not predict price. The levels on it — the golden pocket included — are proportions of the night's range and nothing more.
The routine takes a few minutes a night. The Penthaus indicator does the same drawing without the clicks: it measures the window on 1-minute data whatever timeframe the chart is on, holds direction until a close runs a set distance through the 0.5, and redraws every evening on its own. It draws levels and nothing else.
Where it lives
The drawing is built from these entries.
THE NQ DEALING RANGE CLOSES AT 22:03 ET AND PUBLISHES MINUTES LATER, BEFORE THE SESSION — SCORED AFTER, EITHER WAY. SEE THE RECORD → · AUDIT THE CHAIN →