summary: the IB report shows how price behaves after the first hour range. this article is the trade-it layer: the one number to read, what to actually do with it, how the retracement and level counts are counted, a worked example, how to set it up so it matches your chart, and what to check when the numbers look off. for the full breakdown of all 16 variants, see which IB report should I use?

the initial balance (IB) is the range price builds at the start of your session, usually the first hour, though you can set it anywhere from 5 minutes up to 4 hours. the report answers one question: after that range is set, does price break above it, break below it, break both sides, or stay inside?

start with the standard view and read the overall breakout rate and the direction lean. that's your foundation.

rule of thumb: look for a read that clears a comfortable majority before you lean on it — the further clear, the better. a decisive directional lean is something to trade with. a near-even split is the data telling you there's no edge today.

the breakout rate tells you whether to trade the break or the range, and the lean tells you which side.

if the IB breaks consistently with a clear directional lean, the first hour range is a launch point. plan to trade the break in the direction the data favors. pull up by-levels to set your take-profit at an extension the data actually reaches, and use by-retracement if you'd rather enter on the pullback than chase the break.

if the IB holds most days (a high "no break" rate), the range itself is the setup. that's a fade-the-edges day, not a breakout day.

one more read worth knowing: by-rejection records which side of the IB formed first and which side broke first after the IB was set. trade toward the side that breaks most often for today's formation order — if the high formed first and the low breaks more often, that's a bearish lean toward the IB low; if the low formed first and the high breaks out more often, that's a bullish lean toward the IB high. that gives you a directional lean before the break even fires. and if you enter at the IB close on that lean, by-rejection-retracement shows how far price typically pulls back against you before the expected side breaks, so you can set a stop that survives the drawdown. use its ending zone selector to focus both formation charts on the zone price closed the IB in today.

the by-retracement view trips people up because the level counts don't add up to your total days — and they aren't meant to. the levels are cumulative: they nest inside each other.

price that retraces to the 75% level had to move through 25% and 50% on the way, so that day is counted at 25%, at 50%, and at 75%. each level is really telling you "how often price retraced at least this far" — not "how often it stopped exactly here." that's why the deeper levels show smaller counts, and why one day can show up at several levels at once.

by-levels works the same way on the extension side: reaching the 50% extension means price tagged 25% first. read both as "reached at least this far" and the numbers stop looking contradictory.

where the levels sit. each retracement level is a share of the IB range, measured from the broken side back into the range, and the report plots them on the chart for you. you read the counts — the report handles the placement.

by-rejection-retracement counts its lines the same cumulative way, but it measures a different window — before the break, not after. it sorts each day by which side of the IB formed first: low first means the bias is long and the IB high is the target; high first means short, with the IB low as the target. the target side is the 0% line and the far side is the 100% line.

from the IB close (10:30 AM ET on a one-hour NY IB) until the first break of the IB, it measures the deepest pullback away from the target. each day is bucketed by where the IB close landed on that scale (0–25%, 25–50%, 50–75%, or 75–100%), and only days where the expected side broke first are counted.

here's how that looks with prices: the IB low forms first, so the target is the IB high. IB high 105, IB low 100 — a 5-point range. the 25% line is 103.75, the 50% line is 102.50, the 75% line is 101.25, and the 100% line is the IB low at 100.00. the IB closes at 104.50, in the 0–25% bucket. if price trades down to 102.50 before breaking the high, that's a pullback to the 50% line.

for your stop: this is the drawdown you may take entering at the IB close and targeting the expected break. if the data shows price rarely pulls back past the 50% line, a stop beyond the 50% line gives the trade room while keeping your risk defined.

say you're trading NQ on the NY session. standard shows a strong upside breakout rate, by-rejection shows that when the low forms first, the high breaks first more often (a bullish lean), and by-levels shows price reaches the 50% extension a high share of the time.

the plan that falls out of that: trade the upside break of the IB high, set your first target at the 50% extension level, invalidate if price closes back inside the IB. you built an entry, a target, and an exit straight from the data instead of guessing.

results take customization and reps. the data gives you the edge, your process and risk management are what turn it into a result.

the IB is defined by your session. an IB on the NY session (9:30 to 10:30 AM ET) measures something completely different than an IB on London or Asia. set the session to the one you actually trade.

the standard first-hour IB windows are NY 9:30–10:30 AM ET, London 8:00–9:00 AM London time (3:00–4:00 AM ET most of the year, 4:00–5:00 AM ET in the weeks the US and UK clocks are out of sync), and forex (e.g. GBP/USD) 8:00–9:00 AM ET — or set your own window (see custom time ranges and sessions for the IB report).

then match your TradingView chart to it: set your TradingView timezone to match the session (NY = America/New_York, London = Europe/London) so your levels line up with the report. a mismatched timezone is the number one reason the numbers look wrong.

one more setting to know: the IB reports can filter by IB size — small, medium, or large first-hour ranges. with a size filter on, the report only counts days in that bucket, so the day total drops below the calendar days in your lookback. that's expected. clear the filter if you want every day back in the sample.

if the report disagrees with what you see on your chart, check these in order before assuming it's broken:

most mismatches are one of these. the full walkthrough is in why your edgeful data doesn't match TradingView, and the full mismatch checklist is in why doesn't my number match?. if everything matches and the number still looks wrong, that's worth reporting, not trading around.

check the sample size before you trade a stat. a 90% breakout rate built on 6 occurrences isn't reliable. and a number that's held across the 1-year, 6-month, and 3-month lookbacks is far more trustworthy than one that only shows up on a single window.