summary: everything the gap fill report does — what it measures, the fill rate to read, all 7 variants and their subreports, the 50% continuation checkpoint, when to fade the gap vs trade the continuation, a worked example, and how to set your chart up so your numbers match.

a gap is the space between where a session opens and where the session before it closed. the gap fill report answers one question: how often does price come back to that prior close before the session ends?

a gap is when the session opens above or below the previous session close (PSC). the report answers: how often does price come back and fill that gap, returning to the PSC, during the session?

the fill level is the PSC, and that's your target. the fill rate is how often price gets there. you can also set the report to measure half gaps if you target a partial fill — and the 50% level does double duty as a continuation checkpoint, covered below.

read the fill rate for today's setup. the report splits it by gap direction and by conditions like gap size and weekday, because a small gap and a large gap fill at very different rates.

look for a fill rate that clears the bar by a comfortable margin before you trade the fill — a solid majority, not a coin flip, and the further clear of it the better. a marginal read is a no-trade, not a smaller trade.

standard gives you the headline fill rate. the 6 subreports slice that same data — by gap size, weekday, what happens after the fill, how far price ran first, when it filled, and the prior day's direction.

by size. the single most important slice to check before any fade. small gaps fill far more often than large ones, so the headline number can hide a much lower fill rate on the gap size you're actually looking at. find your gap's size bucket and read its fill rate — but check the sample count, since large-gap buckets are often thin. you can also set your own size band under customize report, so you can split small from big at the line that matters for your ticker and compare the two.

by weekday. the same fill rate broken out Monday through Friday. some instruments fill more reliably on certain days, especially around regular weekly flows. weekdays are always determined by ET.

by close. a gap can fill and then keep right on going. this takes only the gaps that filled and shows how often the day then closed green vs red — so you know whether the fill tends to hold into the close or whether price often reverses back through it.

by spike. on the days the gap filled, how far did price first run away from the gap before coming back to fill it? it shows the average and max spike, up and down. use it to place stops: a move against your fade that's still within the average spike is normal noise; once price exceeds it, the fill is far less likely and it's time to be concerned. one mistake worth naming: setting the stop at the size of the gap. on plenty of gaps that go on to fill, price runs further against the trade than the gap itself before it turns — by-spike shows how far past the open the stop actually needs to sit.

by fill time. of the gaps that filled, how many filled before vs. after a time you choose. most gaps that fill do so early, so this tells you your highest-probability window — and when to stop waiting on a fill that probably isn't coming.

by prev candle. the standard fill rate, filtered by whether the previous day closed green (closed above its open) or red. it shows whether the prior day's momentum changes how often the gap fills.

fill percentage. how much of the gap has to close to count as a fill. 100% is a full fill back to the prior close; set it lower — 75%, 50%, or 25% — to study partial fills, which get hit more often the smaller the target is. the 50% level also works as a continuation checkpoint, covered in the next section.

gap size. filter to a specific gap-size band so you're not mixing tiny gaps in with large ones.

session. the session you pick sets both the open and the "previous close" the gap is measured from — a NY-session gap and a London-session gap are different gaps on the same day.

a couple of subreports add their own settings: by fill time has the time threshold (before/after), and by spike has a dollar-vs-percent measurement and an exclude-outliers toggle.

the fill-percentage setting lets you measure a half gap — price travelling 50% of the way back to the PSC instead of all the way. most traders read that as a softer target to settle for. it also works as a confirmation signal.

the question worth asking is conditional: once price tags the 50% level, how often does it carry on to the full 100% fill? that read comes in consistently higher than the headline fill rate — it holds across tickers, on gaps up and gaps down, and on both short and long lookbacks. pull it for your own ticker, session, and window before you lean on it.

what it changes at the level: on a gap up, don't treat the 50% line as a spot to expect a bounce back up. the data has favored continuation down to the full fill, so hold the fade toward the PSC instead of taking the half fill and flipping long. flip it for a gap down.

the report gives you the 50% fill rate on its own. the conditional read — 50% hit then 100% hit — isn't a report view, so pull it from the edgeful API (it needs the day-by-day rows, which come with pro and all access).

the gap-fill level is your exit target — where you aim to exit the trade. the bias tells you the session's likely direction based on historical data.

these work independently. you can aim for a gap-fill target moving downward even if the overall session bias is bullish. they measure different things.

price gaps away from the prior day's range at the open. example: yesterday closed at 100.50 (high 101.00, low 99.50). today opens at 98.80 — that's a gap down.

now price has two possible targets as the day unfolds.

outside day reversal: the closer target

outside day reversal requires price to touch the prior day's high or low — depending on which direction the gap moved.

on a gap down: the prior low was 99.50. price must rally back up to 99.50 to complete the outside day reversal. this usually happens early in the session. it's a closer target because it's only the prior day's low, not the prior close.

on a gap up: it flips. the target is the prior high (101.00 here), and price must fall back down to it to complete the reversal.

gap fill: the deeper target

gap fill requires price to reach the prior day's close, not just the high/low. this is a much deeper, farther target.

on a gap down: the prior close was 100.50. price has to rally from 98.80 all the way back up to 100.50 to fill the gap. much harder than rallying to just 99.50.

real scenario to show the difference: gap down opens at 98.80. price rallies to 99.50 within the first hour (outside day reversal complete, market hit the prior low). but then it stalls and never makes it up to 100.50 (prior close). so you get outside day reversal ✓ but gap fill ✗.

why one hits more often

outside day reversals hit more often because the target is closer. gap fills hit less often because they require deeper penetration back into the prior range.

the difference is always there — gap fills require more price movement, so fewer of them complete.

one gap, two possible outcomes

on a bearish gap (gap down), you're watching two levels as the day unfolds:

1. prior day's low = outside day reversal target (high probability)
2. prior day's close = gap fill target (lower probability, requires bigger move)

some traders enter at the prior low and take partial profits, holding for a potential full fill. others skip the low entirely and wait for the close. both approaches are valid depending on your risk/reward preference.

if you're scalp-oriented, the high-probability outside day reversal target is your ideal entry. if you're willing to hold longer for bigger moves, wait for confluence signals that suggest a gap fill is more likely (the fill rate above tells you how likely that is for your ticker and session).

the gap-fill status bar is based on 6 months of historical price behavior in similar scenarios (same gap size + same weekday). if the bar signals bearish, it means prices have typically moved lower under these conditions — regardless of what the prior-day close looks like.

gap up and bearish: market opens higher than yesterday's close, but historically tends to fill the gap and move down.

gap up and bullish (high probability not fill): market opens higher and historically continues higher — unlikely to fill.

these labels give you quick probability snapshots for decision-making.

the fill rate points you to one of two trades.

high fill rate: fade the gap. trade back toward the prior close. enter near the open, target the fill level, and invalidate if price pushes further into the gap instead of closing it — a gap that keeps extending is telling you it's a gap-and-go, not a fill.

low fill rate / "high probability not fill": trade the continuation. the data says price is more likely to keep going in the gap direction than to come back. don't fade it. trade with the gap, and use the prior close as your invalidation instead of your target.

here's the decision in one place:

before you commit, check by-size — a gap this size might fill far less often than the headline number — and by-spike, so a normal move against you doesn't shake you out of a good fade.

the full fill is the default target, and on a small gap it's usually the right one. on a big gap it usually isn't — large gaps go all the way back to the prior close far less often than small ones, and by-size shows you where that line sits for your ticker.

that doesn't make a big gap a no-trade. drop the fill percentage and the fill rate climbs — the smaller the target, the more often price gets there. so let the gap size choose the target, instead of trading the full fill on every gap out of habit:

the stop has to match the target. a partial-fill target on a big gap sits much closer to your entry, so a stop sized for a full fill means risking far more than you stand to make — tighten it. and where the line between small and big falls is a per-ticker read that drifts, so split by-size at your threshold, compare the full-fill rate on each side, and re-check it every few weeks.

at the open, what's in play does the sizing for you. the gap fill card shows the gap type, the gap size as a % of price, the target, and how far price has spiked away so far — so you know which target you're working with before the first candle closes.

if the headline fill rate looks weak and you're not sure which lever to pull, ask edgeful AI what customizations would change it — it'll walk you through the fill target, gap size, weekday, previous candle, and fill time, and run the numbers on your ticker (more prompts in best questions to ask edgeful AI). André's worked NQ example of exactly this — small gaps to the full fill, big gaps to a partial — is on the blog: do gaps always fill? how often gaps fill on NQ, by gap size (blog). those numbers are one ticker over one window, so pull by-size for what you trade.

scenario: complete gap fill in the first candle. if the opening gap fully fills within the first 5-minute candle (price closes back inside the prior day's range), there's no gap fill setup left to trade.

example: gap down opens at 98.80. within the first 5-min candle, price rallies and closes at 100.50 (prior close). gap already filled. no gap fill setup.

that's expected — no trade exists because the gap already resolved. the gap fill setup needs a gap that hasn't filled yet, so there's an actual move left to trade.

say you're trading NQ in the NY session and price gaps up. read your own numbers off the live report as you work through it.

1. gap fill standard shows the gap has filled a clear majority of the time over your lookback. that clears the bar, so the lean is to fade — trade back down toward the prior close.
2. you check by-size to make sure a gap this big fills as often as the headline. if the right size bucket holds up on a healthy sample, you're good. if the rate falls away there, or the bucket rests on only a handful of occurrences, you stand down.
3. you glance at by-spike to see how far price typically runs before filling, so you can set a stop that survives the normal heat.
4. plan: short near the open, target the fill level (the prior NY close), stop above the average spike / session high. if price pushes higher into the gap and closes above your stop, the fade is wrong and you're out — it's a gap-and-go.

you're not predicting the fill. you're trading the side the data has favored, with a defined point where you're proven wrong.

this is where most "my numbers are wrong" problems come from. get it right before anything else.

set your TradingView timezone to match your session. click the clock at the bottom right of your chart and select New York for the NY session (Europe/London for London, Asia/Tokyo for Asia). if your chart is on local or exchange time, you're measuring a different open and a different close.

then match two more things:

fix the timezone first. most discrepancies disappear right there.

if what you measured doesn't match the report, you're almost never looking at a bug — you're looking at two charts set up differently. work through these in order:

if all 6 line up and it still disagrees, that's worth reporting — reach out through the chat bubble with the ticker, session, and what you measured vs what edgeful showed.

full walkthrough: why doesn't my number match the report?

the fill rate is only as good as the sample behind it.

big gaps and rare gap sizes don't happen often, so their buckets in by-size can be thin — the same fill rate over a handful of gaps is nowhere near as trustworthy as one built on hundreds. check the count before you lean on it.

gaps around major news or events behave differently than ordinary overnight gaps. and a fill rate that's held across 1 year, 6 months, and 3 months is far more reliable than one that only shows up on the long lookback. use the date range to confirm the edge is still there.

when the sample's thin or the gap is event-driven, that's the time to stand down rather than force the fade.