APEX Lite — how to use it
Lite has one job and does it properly: it draws the opening range of every trading session and gets out of your way. No signals, no alerts, no clutter. What you do with the range is up to you.
Quick start
- Open a 5-minute chart. Lite detects sessions on the 5-minute timeframe. Other timeframes will display, but session timing is calibrated for 5M.
- Set your timezone. Under Timezone → Display Timezone, choose the one you trade in. Session times shift automatically.
- Pick your sessions. European, London and New York are on by default. Asia / Australia is off.
- That's all. There is nothing else to configure. Boxes draw as each session completes.
What you get
- Four sessions — European, London, New York and Asia / Australia.
- The opening range box, drawn once the session hour completes.
- High and low extension lines, projected 80 bars forward.
- The midline — the centre of the range, and a level price respects more often than most traders expect.
- Live session shading, so you can see at a glance when a session is running.
How to read the range
The high and low are the decision points
Price spends the session hour building a range. Once that hour ends, those two levels become the lines the market makes its mind up at. A close beyond one of them is the market committing to a direction. A wick through it that snaps straight back is often the opposite — a liquidity grab, where stops beyond the level get taken before price reverses.
The midline is the tell
The centre of the range is where balance sits. Price holding above it after a break tends to confirm strength; price sliding back through it often means the break was hollow. It is the quietest line on the chart and frequently the most informative.
The range has a shelf life
Levels project 80 bars forward — roughly seven hours on a 5-minute chart. Beyond that, the session's range has usually stopped mattering and the next session's is what the market is trading against.
The range is not final until the session closes — a late spike can widen it. Lite draws the box once the hour completes, which is also the moment the levels become tradeable. While a session is still running, the shaded background tells you so.
When a trade could be taken
Lite draws the range but makes no judgement about it — the decision is entirely yours. This is the reasoning traders using this strategy typically apply. It is an explanation of the method, not a recommendation, and none of it is trading advice.
The setup
Once the session hour ends and the box is fixed, price is either inside the range or it isn't. The strategy waits for price to leave — decisively.
- Wait for the session to finish. Nothing is actionable while the hour is still running, because the range can still widen.
- Watch for a candle that closes beyond the box — above the high for a potential long, below the low for a potential short.
- A close, not a touch. A wick that pokes through the level and pulls back is not a break. It is often the opposite: a liquidity grab, where stops beyond the level are taken before price turns the other way.
- Look for conviction in the candle. A breakout candle with a large body relative to its range says the move was decisive. A small, indecisive candle that barely closes beyond the level is far weaker evidence.
- The range has a shelf life. The further price gets from the session, the less the range means. A break six hours later is not the same event as a break twenty minutes later.
Where the risk sits
The range gives you the trade's structure for free. If the break is genuine, price should not return through the range and out the other side — so the opposite edge of the box is the natural place for a stop.
- Stop — just beyond the far side of the range. Below the range low on a long, above the range high on a short.
- Targets — measured as multiples of that stop distance. A 1:1 target sits the same distance beyond your entry as your stop sits below it; 2:1 is twice that, and so on.
- The midline is your health check. If price breaks out and then slides back through the middle of the range, the break has failed its own premise.
Most ranges get broken at some point in the day. What separates a setup from noise is the quality of the break — how decisively the candle closed, how soon after the session it happened, and whether anything significant sits between your entry and your target. A level that price has already been rejected from twice is not the same opportunity as clean air.
Everything above is a judgement you make by eye in Lite. Pro applies the same conditions mechanically — it checks the candle closed beyond the range, tests its body and wick against five candlestick patterns, and draws the stop and three targets from the range for you. Lite teaches you the method; Pro runs it.
Sessions
Times shown are UK / London defaults and shift with your chosen timezone. If you only trade London, switch the other three off — one clean box beats four overlapping ones.
Settings
There are only nine, and most people never change them.
Clock changes do not land on the same date everywhere. If a session box looks an hour out, correct it with the start-hour inputs under Timezone — for example, set NY Open start hour to 14 when US clocks shift ahead of the UK.
Troubleshooting
No boxes on my chart
Check you are on a 5-minute chart, that the session is enabled, and that the session hour has actually finished — the box is drawn on completion, not while the hour runs.
The chart looks busy
Turn off the sessions you do not trade, and shorten Extension Line Length. Most people find one or two sessions is plenty.
Why there are no alerts in Lite
This is by design, not an omission. Lite draws levels; it does not judge them. The decision about what counts as a valid break is left entirely to you. If you want the indicator to make that call — and to tell you when it does — that is what Pro is for.