Opening range breakout (ORB) trade journal

The opening range breakout, usually shortened to ORB, is one of the most common day trading setups. It is also one of the easiest to measure honestly, which makes it a good first strategy to track in a trading journal.

What the setup is

The opening range is the high and low of the first few minutes after the market opens. Traders commonly use the first 5, 15 or 30 minutes. The idea is simple:

• A move above the range high is an ORB high breakout, usually traded long.
• A move below the range low is an ORB low breakdown, usually traded short, or with puts.
• Some traders wait for a pullback to the range edge, an ORB retest, before entering.
• Others trade against a breakout that immediately fails, an ORB fakeout fade.

Whether any of these works depends on the instrument, the day and, most of all, how consistently you trade it. That is exactly what a journal is for.

What to record

Tag every ORB trade with a consistent setup name, then note:

• Which range you used (5, 15 or 30 minutes).
• Entry time. Breakouts in the first hour behave differently from late-morning ones.
• Range size compared with the recent average. A very narrow or very wide range can change the odds.
• Direction relative to the day's trend, if you track it.
• Where your stop and target were at entry, so you can compare them with the result.

What to measure

After 30 or more trades, compare:

1. ORB high against ORB low. Many traders find they are much better at one side.
2. Results by entry hour and by weekday. OptiqJournal's heatmap shows average P&L by weekday and entry hour.
3. Average win against average loss. A breakout strategy often wins less than half the time, so the size of winners matters.
4. Retest entries against first-touch entries.
5. Mistakes. Chasing a breakout that already ran is the classic one. Tag it as Chased entry and watch what it costs.

Keep the sample honest

A handful of winning trades proves nothing. Record every ORB trade, including the ones you hated, and judge the setup on the full list. If your results by setup show it losing money, that is useful information, not a failure.

Import your trades, pick ORB High breakout or ORB Low breakdown as the setup, and the dashboard will show how each strategy performs. For other common setups see how to track an 8 EMA and VWAP crossover.

This article describes how to measure a setup, not a recommendation to trade it. Trading involves risk of loss.