summary: how to use the power hour breakout and continuation reports to trade the final hour — whether a new high or low prints late, and whether the day's color holds into the close.

the power hour is the final hour of the regular session — the last stretch before the close, when volume and volatility often pick back up. by default it's the 3:00–4:00 pm ET hour, and you can change its length in the customize settings. edgeful has two reports built around it, and they answer different questions:

one tells you whether the day's range tends to extend late; the other tells you whether the day's direction tends to hold into the bell. both are session and ticker specific, and stock traders use regular trading hours only.

for breakout, a high rate means the day often prints a fresh extreme in the final hour — the range tends to expand late, so a push to a new high or low is worth trading with rather than fading. a low rate means the day's high and low are usually already set before the power hour, which favors fading the extremes into the close.

for continuation, a high rate means the final hour usually keeps the session's color — if the day's been green into 3 pm, it tends to finish green. read them together: a day that both holds its color and prints a new extreme in the power hour is a clean late-day trend trade. open the reports for the ticker and session you trade to see the current rates.

how often a new high of day (NHOD) or new low of day (NLOD) prints during the power hour — a new high is a breakout, a new low is a breakdown. use it when you want the odds that the final hour extends the day's range rather than staying inside it.

compares the color of the session going into the power hour with the power hour's own color — how often the final hour continues the day's direction (a green session finishing green, and the same for red). use it to decide whether to hold a runner into the bell or bank it before the final hour.

both reports share the same two slices:

conditions the read on where price is trading as the power hour opens — a way to factor in how the session set up going into the final hour.

the same read filtered to one weekday. the last hour behaves differently on a quiet midweek day than on a Friday into the weekend, so use it to lean on the power hour only on the days the data supports. watch sample sizes on thinner days.

the customize button controls the power hour window — its length, anchored to the 4 pm close (1 hour by default, which gives you the 3:00–4:00 pm power hour). the continuation report adds a setting for how the power hour's color is measured. whatever you set shows up in the custom settings panel on the report.

the two reports work as a pair. continuation gives you the day's lean into the close; breakout tells you whether the final hour is likely to make a new extreme to trade toward. the highest-confluence late-day trade is a new high or low in the direction the continuation report already favors — you're not guessing whether the trend holds, the data's telling you it usually does.

they also help you manage what you're already holding: a strong continuation read is a reason to hold a runner into the bell, a weak one is a reason to bank it before the power hour starts.