What a range budget is — and how to read a session's movement
The range budget is one bar that answers one question: how much has the market actually moved today, compared to a normal day like this?
What the pieces mean
Range is the total distance price traveled — the gap between the session's high and low. Not direction, just movement. 100% on the bar is a normal day's movement for this day type: we take every recorded day of the same character from the two-year archive and use the median of their ranges as the yardstick. The yardstick changes with the day type — a normal trend day's 100% is far bigger than a chop day's, which is why the bar is labelled with the day it is measuring against.
The fill is how much of that normal movement today has used. "58% of a typical chop-day's range" means the session moved barely more than half of what days like it usually move — a quieter-than-typical tape.
Why the same bar reads two ways
An option buyer paid for movement. A day stuck at 58% means the movement they paid for mostly did not show up — time decay ate the premium while the market napped. An option seller is paid for the market staying quiet; 58% of normal range is exactly the day they were hoping for. Same bar, opposite emotions. That is the point of the view: it does not tell anyone what to do, it tells everyone what kind of day they are actually standing in.
Reading it live
During market hours the bar fills through the day: "today has used 72% of a typical chop-day's range by 12:40" means the day is spending its usual movement early. Crossing 100% with hours still left means today is officially moving more than days like it normally do — worth attention. Crawling at 2pm means the day is unusually asleep.
What it never says
What happens next. A day that used 58% by lunch is not "due" for a move — quiet days often simply stay quiet, and loud days often keep being loud. Movement already spent tells you nothing certain about movement to come. The bar describes the day so far; the rest of the day is nobody's fact.
See what kind of day today actually was
The Pulse records every session's character — day type, streaks, regime and confidence — published after each close, free.
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This article describes market mechanics for educational purposes. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or a forecast — conditions, never calls.