As the saying goes there are many ways to skin a cat, in terms of a range it is usually it is pretty simple to "see" a range and I believe people get a little hung up on this point.

I will start by Identifying two types of range. 

• Intraday Range
• Longer Term Ranges

The intraday or more specifically the range I look for which develops with a high degree of probability is in the overnight or Asian trading session.

I will usually idententity these overnight ranges on the 15 minute or 60 minute charts.

A range outside of this time slot that rolls over from one day to the next, while still technically an intraday range I would start to look at it differently and more than often has a larger high to low range value.  This range can also start to develop into a longer term range over sever days to several weeks.

I will usually look on the 60 minute or 240 minute charts to try to identify these larger term ranges.

By definition a range can be classified as when price action is moving sideways making neither higher highs or lower low.  Some example of  both the ranges discussed can be seen below.  More on how to identify them in the early stages of development and trading them later.

As an example of an intraday range that I look for I like to see an overnight or Asian range set up ideally it the top or bottom portion of the previous days high/low range.  The overnight range as the name suggest is highlighting low volatility at that moment in time. When I tie this in with the ATR I can see IF this trading opportunity has any "potential" to move.

A slight aside from intraday ranges is a question that I often get asked which is "At what time do you draw the ranges?"  There really is no simple answer to this I start my day usually between 6am and 7am UK time and due to the typically lower trading activity you will quite often see an overnight range.  In the past I have used a cut off time of 8am, 7am and 6am with a starting time of 10pm or 12pm.  

IF the 12pm range low and the 7am range high is still inside the range boundaries that you can see on the chart then use little common sense and expand those boundaries... trust me it will be obvious.

Looking at this next chart you can see the same type of pattern that has developed in that price action has been moving sideways not making new highs or new lows on the chart and price is consolidating.  This is a pattern on the 240 minute chart and developed over many days.  As is often the case when looking at these ranges they will "leap" off the chart at you.