What it does
The Average Daily Range (ADR) tells you how far a market typically travels from its daily high to its daily low. This indicator calculates the ADR from completed days and projects it from the current day's open, so you can see at a glance where a "typical" day's move would take price. An on-chart panel shows the ADR in pips, today's range so far and the percentage of the ADR already used.
How it works
- Daily range = daily high - daily low, from the broker's D1 history.
- ADR = average of the daily ranges of the previous N completed days. Sunday bars can be skipped so short weekend sessions do not drag the average down.
- For every chart bar, the indicator finds the trading day it belongs to and draws: the day's open (dotted), open + ADR and open - ADR (solid), and open plus and minus ADR / 2 (dotted).
- Panel: today's range = current D1 high - current D1 low; percentage used = today's range / ADR x 100; remaining = ADR - today's range (not below zero).
- Pips are 10 points on 3- and 5-digit symbols and 1 point otherwise.
- One alert is sent per day when the percentage used reaches the chosen threshold.
Example (illustrative): if the 14-day ADR on a pair is 80 pips and today's high-low range is 60 pips, the panel shows 75% of ADR used and 20 pips left.
How to use it
ADR is mainly a context tool:
- Targets: a take-profit beyond open + ADR asks for an above-average day, which happens less often.
- Late entries: when 90% or more of the ADR has been used, chasing a move gives less room before a typical day would be complete.
- Stops: knowing the average day's range helps keep a stop-loss outside normal noise.
Because the projection starts at the open, a day that trends away from the open will often finish near one of the ADR lines, while a two-sided day stays between them. For more on why range matters, see the volatility lesson, and convert pip distances to money with the Pip Calculator.
Settings
| Input | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Days in the average | 14 | Longer averages react more slowly to changes in volatility |
| Ignore Sunday daily bars | true | Excludes Sunday D1 bars from the average |
| Show the half-ADR lines | true | Shows or hides the dotted half-range lines |
| Bars of history to draw | 5000 | History drawn; 0 draws all bars |
| Info panel, corner, colour | on, top-left, silver | Panel visibility and position |
| Alert threshold (% of ADR) | 100 | 0 turns the alert off |
Limitations
- ADR describes the past; any day can be much larger or smaller than average, especially around major news.
- The day boundary is the broker's server time, so values differ between brokers.
- Projecting from the open assumes the open is meaningful; gaps or volatile opens can distort the lines.
- Panel values for "today" change throughout the day by design.