Key Levels to Mark Before the Open

Start here every single day. Before the RTH session, mark the highest price traded overnight and the lowest price traded overnight. Those two lines box the session in. They put price action inside a container so you know instantly whether the market is breaking out or trapped inside the range.

One nuance traders miss… the overnight low often lands inside the maintenance hours, that quiet window when the market barely trades. Find it anyway. George also carries the prior RTH high into the new day, because that established level is exactly where ES futures tends to tag when it reaches back up.

A 15-minute chart is George’s workhorse for this. On one screen he sees the entire overnight session and the whole trading day at once… “we’re on a 15-minute chart so I can see the overnight and the whole day at once” (Oct 29, 2022). One glance, and the container is right there in front of you.

The overnight range is the frame. Now fill it in. The market trades around the clock in three sessions, and each one leaves footprints worth marking… the Asia high and low, the London high and low, and the halfback of the overnight move. Get notified when price reaches each. What happens at these levels drives how the whole day trades.

Why bother with all of them? Because the market hunts liquidity. George has watched a move grab every session low in sequence, then ladder right back into its trend… “you got the London low, you got the Asia low, you got the overnight low” (Sep 13, 2025). Stack those levels on your chart and the sweeps stop surprising you.

The Initial Balance (IB) is the high and low set in the first hour of the RTH session, from 9:30 to 10:30 Eastern. It’s one of the most reliable reference levels of the day, and it isn’t complete until that first hour closes. So George automates the reminder. He sets a system alarm that fires one hour into trading, telling him to draw the IB high and IB low.

Once that hour prints, get the lines on the chart and leave them there… “we now have IB lows and highs, you want to get those marked on your chart” (Aug 21, 2025). The IB pairs naturally with your overnight and session levels. Together they form the read that feeds every trade decision the rest of the day.

Here’s the routine that ties it all together. George starts every day on the monthly chart and works down, marking his hold levels and break levels at each time frame in turn: monthly, weekly, daily, four-hour, one-hour, thirty-minute, all the way to the three-minute. That’s what “Chart Highest Time Frame Down” means.

The job doesn’t stop when the bell rings. Keep charting on all time frames as the session breathes. If you notice you’ve been parked on one chart too long, switch. Drop to a 30-minute to confirm a level actually cleared, then rotate back up. Read across the frames and you’ll always know exactly where price sits.

Rotating through frames is a discipline, so lean on tools that force it. Many charting platforms include a cycle button that flips your time frames automatically on a timer… “there’s a cycle button that you can turn on to go automatically for you, or to remind you” (Jun 29, 2026). Set it to every 20 or 30 minutes and the platform nudges you before you get tunnel vision.

Some of these lines never trigger a trade. Mark them anyway. A trend line off the overnight structure may not be a signal, yet George keeps it because it tells him something important the moment price breaks it. Awareness levels earn their place. For the full weekend version of this routine, see Sunday Chart Prep.

That high-time-frame range does double duty. Sometimes it tells you not to trade at all… “you might look at this chart and go, you know what, I’m not interested in trading anywhere near here, well then maybe you don’t even look at the chart on Monday, or you set some alerts” (Feb 22, 2026). The map decides whether an edge is even close.

Beyond the obvious session lines, two structures reward the trader who marks them: gaps and single prints. When the market gaps, draw it from the close of one candle to the open of the next on a 1-minute chart, and write down the exact numbers. That gap is unexplored territory, and price loves to come back and fill it.

Single prints and Fair Value Gaps (FVGs) work the same way, and George treats finding them as homework. Before price runs up into a target, drop to the 30-minute chart and mark every FVG between current price and that target. A dedicated FVG indicator set to 30 minutes shows you exactly where they hide.

Then carry the good levels forward. A set of single prints or an RTH two-day POC doesn’t expire when the bell rings… “you had the set of single prints here at 6975, so put that on your chart, this RTH 2-day POC is still there at 4550, make sure that is on your chart as well” (Jun 26, 2025). Mark for thoroughness. Even a small, low-significance cluster goes on the chart so you know it’s there when price arrives.

George’s group has an indicator that marks the overnight levels automatically. He still draws his own lines. Old school, pen-and-ruler old school. The indicator just checks his work… he wants to own his levels.

He’ll finish the day, mark his levels, and print a clean chart to sit down with a pen and a ruler… “grab a pin and a ruler and go draw my lines” (Oct 29, 2022). Why go analog in a digital world? Because marking levels has to become automatic. Like learning to drive or fly a plane, you narrate every step at first, then after fifty reps you never say the words again.

To make sure new members can actually mark levels correctly, George built a verification system he calls Earn Your Badges. Members prove they can draw the first three bounce levels where price will actually bounce, and George reviews their charts himself. There’s a fourth badge too, earned by completing the 100 break level challenge.

You can grade yourself too. Pull up a past day, mark it fresh on a 3-minute chart, then compare your lines to George’s end-of-day charts. Screenshot his so the numbers on the side line up with yours… “does your levels match mine, it’s a great way to double check yourself” (Apr 7, 2023). This is the same feedback loop behind the End of Day Chart Review.

George frames the whole practice like rehearsing sheet music before the concert. Do the homework, candle by candle on the replay if you have to, and you walk into live trading confident enough to mark levels on the fly… “the more you practice that sheet music, the more confident you will be in live trading to do the levels” (Dec 20, 2022). No level, no trade… so the level marking is the whole game. Study it like a college student, and don’t cheat yourself on the training.