Does the opening range breakout work? We tested the version everyone is posting

It did not pass. The best-faith version turned $1 into less than 1 cent after costs over 2017 to 2025, against $104 for the basket it traded, and its trades beat only 1 of 200 copies placed at random times. Before costs it still lost money. Our earlier futures study found 0 of 52 opening-breakout rules passed.

What people say

The pitch is simple. Wait for the first 15 minutes after the open, mark the high and the low, and trade whichever side breaks first. Stop on the other side, aim for twice your risk, and stop trading by mid-morning. It is the most-discussed single setup on the trading subreddits this autumn, usually sold with a prop-firm payout screenshot.

• "I still mainly trade the 15 minute ORB + FVG" (r/Trading post, 4 Sep 2026)
• "Absolutely NO trading after 10:15 am" (r/Daytrading post)
• "Mostly simple stuff like range breakouts, opening range breakouts" (r/Daytrading post, 24 Sep 2026)

Between 1 September and 5 October 2026, 80 posts in five trading subreddits mentioned ORB by name and 186 mentioned breakouts. The prop-firm post above had 314 upvotes and 212 comments. On YouTube, "FINALLY! An ORB Strategy That Actually Works" (Trendline Project, 22 Sep) had 7,544 views in two weeks. Our sources page lists every link.

What we tested

Our research harness works on daily bars and on hourly crypto bars, so it cannot draw a 15-minute range on Nasdaq futures. We did two things instead. First, we ran the closest version it can test fairly: the same rule on hourly crypto, where the first hour of the UTC day plays the part of the opening range. We wrote down three versions and the pass bar before running anything. Second, we went back to our earlier intraday study, which tested opening breakouts on 5-minute and 60-minute futures bars, and report it below.

• 1-hour opening range, entries in the next 2 hours only, 2R target, stop at the other edge. The range is the high and low of the first hour of the UTC day. Buy the first hourly close above it (or sell short the first close below it), but only in the next two hours. Take profit at two times the range width, stop out on a close back past the other side, and close anything still open at 23:00 UTC. One trade a day.
• 1-hour opening range, stop at the other edge, held to the end of the day. Same first-hour range and stop, entries allowed all day, no profit target, out at 23:00 UTC.
• 4-hour opening range, no stop, held to the end of the day (earlier run). A four-hour opening range, no stop, out at the end of the day. This one ran in an earlier batch and is reused, not re-run.

Results

One thing to know before reading the numbers. The benchmark is always fully invested, and from 2017 to early 2025 crypto rose a lot, so any rule that spends much of its time in cash trails it by a wide margin almost automatically. That is why we also compare each rule with 200 copies of itself: the same number of trades, the same holding times and the same costs, moved to random dates. Those copies are in the market exactly as much as the rule is, so they answer the fairer question: did the rule pick better moments than chance? The best-faith version beat 1 of 200 of those copies.

The top chart is the best-faith version against the basket. The bottom chart shows where it lands among its 200 random copies. A rule with real timing skill sits to the right of the grey bars. This one sits at the far left.

What costs do to it

Crypto pays 0.10% a side plus a measured slippage for each coin; US stocks and ETFs pay 0.05% a side. The cost is charged every time the position changes, including a flip from long to short. On hourly crypto that adds up fast: the best-faith version made 12,141 position changes across 8 coins. Before costs it returned -31.5% a year; after costs, -58.3%. The all-day version went from -22.3% to -65.1%. Costs make it much worse, but both first-hour versions lost money even before them.

The futures version, from our earlier study

Earlier this month we tested 52 opening-breakout rules across 16 families on Nasdaq 100, S&P 500 and DAX futures, 29 US stocks and crypto, 238,601 trades in all, with rules and costs written down first. None passed. The rules were built on 2020-01-01 to 2023-12-31 and checked on 2024-01-01 to 2026-09-30.

The plain 5-minute opening range on Nasdaq futures averaged +0.06R a trade on the check window (644 trades, 54% winners). The 60-minute range averaged +0.01R. A 15-minute range on Bitcoin at the New York open averaged -0.35R, because on a range that small the fees are a big slice of every trade.

The closest call was an "opening drive" rule on Nasdaq futures, +0.10R a trade over 508 trades. After correcting for the 101 tests in that study it was not distinguishable from luck. We call it interesting, not demonstrated. Our page on the "81% win rate" opening range video covers the same data from another angle.

• The 81% win rate opening range breakout, tested

Why it did not hold up

A breakout rule makes money only if a move that starts early tends to keep going. In this data a break of the first hour's range did not tend to keep going: both first-hour versions lost money before costs, and the stop on the other side of the range did not fix that.

The 2R target and the time cutoff, the two details people add to make it work, did not rescue it. The cutoff version traded less and still beat only 1 of 200 random copies. The all-day version beat 23 of 200.

The big Reddit claims are self-reported over a few weeks or months. A few good weeks are easy to get by chance with a rule that trades every day, which is exactly why we compare with random copies over years.

What a beginner should take away

• A clear, simple rule is not the same as a rule that works. This one is easy to follow and did not pass on years of data.
• Count the costs first. 12,141 trades in a backtest is a lot of fees and slippage.
• If you still want to try it, paper trade it and write down every trade, including the ones you skip. Compare with what random entries would have done over the same days.

Try it yourself

The Backtest Lab runs on daily bars and has no opening range or channel breakout yet, so it cannot run this rule. The nearest trend-following idea it can run: on QQQ, set the entry to close crosses above sma(close, 20) and the exit to close crosses below sma(close, 20), then compare it with holding QQQ.

• Open the Backtest Lab with QQQ loaded (free account)

The Lab tests one rule on one stock, fills at the next open and compares against holding that stock after costs, so its number will not match the basket results above.

• See a full worked example (free, no account)
• Start lesson 1 of the course (free)

A pass opens every course lesson, the full research tabs and more Lab runs on all 50 Lab stocks. It does not include trade signals or a system that wins.

• What a pass includes

General information only. It doesn't consider your objectives, finances or needs. Tickfloor holds no financial services licence and never places trades.

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• The 5 most-talked-about trading techniques of autumn 2026, tested
• Every popular rule we tested

How we set the rules, costs and pass bar before running anything: the Tickfloor testing standard. The wider record is on the evidence page.