ASX Sessions is a free, open-source overlay indicator for cTrader. It draws a box around the Tokyo, London and New York sessions and marks the previous day’s high and low. You set session hours in each city’s local time, and the indicator handles daylight saving, including the weeks when the US and Europe change their clocks on different dates. It is a charting aid, no signals.

What it does

For each of the last few days, every enabled session gets a rectangle from its start to its end, spanning the highest high and lowest low traded in that window. While a session is running, the box ends at the current bar and grows with it. A small label at the top left names the session. Two lines labelled PDH and PDL show the high and low of the previous completed daily candle across the trading day. Because that candle is already closed, the levels do not repaint.

Key features

• Three sessions: Tokyo, London and New York, each with its own switch, start and end time.
• Daylight saving built in: London follows the UK/EU dates (last Sunday of March to last Sunday of October), New York the US dates (second Sunday of March to first Sunday of November). The rules are applied to each bar’s own date, so history and the gap weeks are drawn correctly. Tokyo has no daylight saving.
• Local city hours: start and end are entered as HH:MM in the city’s own time. An end time at or before the start time means the session crosses midnight.
• Previous day high/low: taken from the chart symbol’s daily candles, which follow your broker’s trading day.
• Optional midline: a thin dotted line halfway between a session’s high and low.
• Light on the chart: only the last Days days are drawn, and session boxes are hidden above H1 by default.
• Clean removal: all drawings share one name prefix and are removed with the indicator.
• Short chart title: only the Days value appears in the title.

Settings and defaults

• Days: 5 (1–30)
• Show Tokyo / Show London / Show New York: on
• Tokyo Start / Tokyo End: 09:00 / 18:00, Tokyo time
• London Start / London End: 08:00 / 17:00, London time
• New York Start / New York End: 08:00 / 17:00, New York time
• Hide Sessions Above H1: on
• Show Midline: off; Box Opacity: 15 %
• Show Previous Day High/Low: on
• Colours: Tokyo violet (#8E7CC3), London blue (#3D85C6), New York orange (#E69138), PDH red (#E06666), PDL green (#6AA84F)

How to use it

• Add it to an intraday chart, M5 to H1, and read each box as “this is where price traded while that city was open”.
• Compare ranges: the Tokyo box against London’s, today’s boxes against the last few days, the current price against PDH and PDL.
• If you define sessions differently, change Start and End. Daylight saving is still applied to your hours.
• Session times in UTC for winter, summer and the gap weeks are explained in our guide to forex trading sessions and daylight saving.

Limitations

• Session hours are conventions. Forex has no official opening bell, and the boxes mark clock windows, not when liquidity actually arrives.
• The box of a running session keeps changing until the session ends.
• PDH and PDL depend on your broker’s daily candle. If that candle includes a short Sunday session, Monday’s “previous day” is that short candle.
• The indicator works with clock times only. It has no holiday calendar.
• It describes where price has traded. It does not predict where price will go.

Platform & install

• Platform: cTrader Windows and Mac (custom indicators run in the desktop apps)
• Type: overlay indicator
• Access rights: None (no full-access permission requested)
• Price: free and open source, no license key
• The download is a ZIP with AsxSessions.algo (ready to install) and AsxSessions.cs (the source code).
• Double-click AsxSessions.algo to install it (install guide), then add ASX Sessions to any chart.

Important notes

ASX Sessions is an analysis tool and does not place trades. Session boxes and previous-day levels show where the market has been; they are not buy or sell signals. Trading leveraged products can lose you money quickly, so test any idea on a demo account first and use your own risk management.