The -4.045 opening-range level: measured odds

A level ladder watched in parts of the futures community: ±4.045× the width of the 9:30:00–9:30:30 ET opening candle, projected up and down from that candle's high and low. Sixteen years of measured touch odds on NQ and ES, split by year and by how wide the opening candle was.

• 16 complete years measured (2010–2025) on both NQ and ES, plus a running 2026 partial year
• 149–258 RTH trading days per year/market cell, Wilson 95% confidence intervals throughout
• Touch rate reported by physical direction and alongside median touch time, not as one headline number

How the levels are built

The opening range is the first 30-second regular-trading-hours candle, 9:30:00–9:30:30 ET, built from two 15-second bars. Its width is width = or_high − or_low. Two fixed target levels are projected from that candle:

• up_level = or_high + 4.045 × width
• down_level = or_low − 4.045 × width

This pair of levels is fixed for the day regardless of which way the opening candle closed — a green or red 30-second candle only changes which of the two levels a community naming convention (“-4.045” vs “+5.045”) points at, not where either level actually sits. Every number below is reported by physical direction (up-side level, down-side level), not by that naming convention.

Touch odds by year

For each RTH day, every 15-second bar from the 9:30:30 ET close of the opening candle through the 16:00 ET session close is checked for a touch of either level — point-in-time, no bar inside the opening candle itself is used. “P(touch either side)” is the probability at least one of the two levels was tagged that day; the up-side/down-side columns split the same touches by physical direction. Median touch time is measured only on days a touch occurred.

† 2026 is a partial year through the data cutoff — read as a running figure, not a final annual result.

Opening-candle width changes the odds

Pooling 2010–2025 and splitting each market into five width quintiles (Q1 = narrowest opening candles, Q5 = widest) shows the touch odds are not flat across the range: the narrowest fifth of days touches in the low-to-mid 90s percent, the widest fifth in the high 70s to low 80s.

The direction is mechanical: a 4.045× multiple of a narrow candle sits close to the day's opening price, so it takes less of a move to tag; the same multiple of a wide candle sits much farther away.

Methodology

Built from 15-second bars, point-in-time from the 09:30:30 ET close of the opening candle through the 16:00 ET session close. Zero/near-zero-width opening candles are kept in the sample rather than excluded (none occurred in this dataset). Continuous-contract roll-splice days are excluded as general data hygiene: ES kept 4,015 of 4,134 RTH days (118 flagged, 1 missing the opening bar), NQ kept 3,806 of 4,134 (328 flagged). Confidence intervals are the Wilson score interval, 95%, from the reported rate and the day count n.

This measures the odds of a touch, not the odds of a profitable trade: a level being tagged says nothing about whether an order placed there would have filled at a usable price, or how much risk a trade would already have carried by the time that touch happened.

Odds are a function of distance

4.045× the opening candle's width is one specific distance, not a universal constant — the width-quintile table above already shows the same multiple lands at very different odds depending on how far it happens to sit from the open. This is the same relationship our touch ladder measures directly and keeps current for every tracked market: P(touch) as a function of ATR-scaled distance and time horizon, not one fixed number.

Price any level yourself

4.045× the opening candle is one specific distance a community picked. Our targets tool prices the touch odds for any distance you choose, on any market we track — the same measured, Wilson-CI approach as the tables above. For how every number on this site is built and reported, see methodology.

Research and education, not financial advice. Independent, not affiliated with TradingView.

FAQ

What is the -4.045 opening-range level?

A pair of price levels projected from the first 30-second RTH candle (9:30:00–9:30:30 ET): the candle's high plus 4.045× its width, and its low minus 4.045× its width. It's a level ladder watched in parts of the futures community; this page reports measured touch odds for it, not a recommendation to trade it.

Does a high touch probability mean the level is profitable to trade?

No. This measures whether price crossed a level at some point in the session — not whether a trade placed there, with a real fill and slippage, would have made money, or how much risk had already accumulated by the time the touch happened.

Why does touch probability change with the opening candle's width?

Because the target distance scales with the candle: a narrow opening candle puts the 4.045× level close to the day's open, and a wide one puts it much farther away. The width-quintile table above shows roughly a 10-percentage-point gap between the narrowest and widest fifths of days.

Why does 2026 look different from other years?

2026 is a partial year — it only covers RTH days through the data cutoff, not a full annual session count. Its numbers are a running figure, not a final annual result, and will keep changing as the year completes.