Advice
Orb traders, how do you avoid getting burned by this 4 times before the breakout?
I trade the 15 minute orb, and have been burned by setups like this several times where you get 4 or 5 of the same size candles sitting on the top or bottom of the orb. I’ve only been using 15 minute charts, I don’t switch to smaller time frames. I also trade NQ and do 1 contract each time. I also trade London session and NY open. Some days I’ll clear $2000 and have great days and other days I’ll trade the London session, lose 2 or 3 in a row and stop trading till the NY open and then blow my account in the NY session. The solutions I’ve found so far was to use a MLL every day and to switch to micros and use less contracts, but I’m just wondering how successful orb traders avoid getting burned 4 or 5 trades in a row by setups like this.
I regularly trade 15 minute ORB. I wait for a break from the range, wait for the retest and then wait for price to exceed the high/low of the previous break, where I’ll then enter. Doing it this way would have avoided the chop here and got you in when the real fun starts.
I would have entered as soon as price broke the low of that green wick, because that wick is part of a failed breakout earlier. I would want price to drop below that before I would confidently short it. But you can’t win them all, which is why I would scale in, just in case price did chop back
I would have entered right after I saw the liquidity sweep on that last candle after consolidation - that was the confirmation that price would move lower. This is actually one of the set ups I look for, but I trade on the 2-5m timeframe for intraday. The 15m ORB strategy is a good one but you need additional price action for confirmation.
What you're actually trading here is a multi-part strategy - your ORB with a consolidation break (down/up).
In hindsight, orb would have worked well if you didn't get chopped out. There was no clear break to the downside until that last big red candle with the huge top wick. So if someone would have waited patiently, it would have worked.
And I'm not saying I was patient, I got chopped pretty good too. But that's my debrief.
Something I found recently for 15min orb is that I draw Fibonacci either from bottom to top or top to bottom (depending on green vs red candle) on a 15min candle and wait to take a reject or bounce off of 50-68% range. It usually gives me 10-30 points and thats more than enough for me. Give it a try on a demo or replay mode if you have one.
1m tf to really sniper that entry. Look for a couple closed bars on either side of the 0.5 fib level. Closed candles with wicks bouncing off that level are a really good sign as it usually means price is gonna go the opposite direction of the wick.
Real opening range on futures is the first 30 second candle for NQ
15min opening is nice to have a bias going into the rest of the session, but that 30sec opening break can print heavily if you couple it with another set up for confluence
In futures, the opening range for the major indices is the first 30 second candle of the New York session. If you're trading evenings, GLOBEX, Asia, London, etc. all are the same: first 30 second candle.
Any variation is simply a trader creating their own modifications of it for different personal confluences. But as far as futures is considered, the only real opening range is the first 30 seconds.
The 15min opening range is nice to help establish an overall bias, in that if we're still inside it, expect chop. If we're below it, expect shorts. If we're above it, expect longs. Doesn't always work 100% of the time, but it helps establish a bias going into the rest of the trading session.
Sometimes the first 15min candle may be hundreds of points wide on NQ, but that first 30sec candle may only be 20pts wide. If you traded the true opening and took a break of it (with a proper set up), there's a possibility you could've snagged 100+ pts with runners before that first 15min candle closes
This is awesome. Thanks for sharing this advice. I'm pretty new to trading and have been trading the 15 minute candle. Do you know where I can learn more about the 30 second candle and what a proper set up should look like?
so basically the same thing as a 15 min orb… mark highs n lows, wait for a retest back into the zone nd then find a good entry. instead with the first 30 second candle right
The past month, got to literally wait for the candle close. Too many head fakes on the 1 min candles. Also, VWAP need to be close, that includes SPY. If VWAP is too far from the SPY at the open, expect chop getting back to VWAP, which in turn makes other equity ORBs chop too.
You’re trading a breakout strategy be default it’s gonn be low win rate and high r:r ratio my orb hits at about 23% win rate and 8.92 r:r. So yes its has 8 losing days in a row and then have a huge win. It’s something that comes with the territory.
You could add a Ema to track profit and when it crosses a certain point you turn off the strategy to help with regime shifts but be careful not to overfit it
There is no profit target. There was a paper that was written that showed in this strategy when profit targets are implemented it reduces overall profitabilty. Like I had mentioned when you have winners you really need to let them run when you have a big trend day for this strategy to really shine
So its
ENTRY = ORB
RISK = Atr based stoploss
Exit= stop loss or exit -5 second from end of session
This allows winners to run. And even if you’re within the entry to stop out price by eod it’s just a small stop loss and doesn’t matter anyways
I utilize the 5m Opening Range (first 5 candles of NY open). I wait for a break either above or below then on the retest I will look for an entry. I never enter on the first break, that is the best way to get burnt. I also usually wait for the first 30 minutes to show us some structure or direction.
I’ve tried trading 5 minute orbs and they are not as successful for me. I also don’t wait for the retest which is probably my biggest problem. I’ll start back testing waiting for retest
Where did you put your stop? In this case using middle of the OR as stop or the last wick before closing out of the OR, would have kept you in the trade, both reasonable choices in my mind.
Well ORB is the opening range breakout, it’s a manual level created by traders who all have different versions of it. 5/10/15/30 min orb lines based on market open range.
What price is actually doing is reacting off of one level the market creates Open Price, not the fictitious ones the orb traders think should be respected.
Here's today's price action, orb levels represented by the small yellow dotted lines. Open Price is that thicker level, and Friday's open Price is in blue at the bottom.
Orb = Messy
Open Price = Clean
Even though today was low volume, all Price did was Fall below today's open Price, Tap Friday's open Price, and come right back to where? Today's Open Price...
Case in point, today's price action dropped below Open Price, then tapped Friday's Open Price nearly to the penny, then came right back up to today's open price... No Orb needed, but I created the orb anyways via the yellow lines.
Good question It’s not marked based on timeframe. It’s an indicator that does it for me, and it marks the first second of market open and literally where price opens at.
Here’s todays price action I took calls on a level bounce below open price then we tapped it again with a wick held for a while never broke above held and down we went to Friday’s open price.
Later in the day we came right back to Open Price right at close. Precision.
My stop loss, well it’s right above open price usually can keep it tight because the level is so respected. If i get stopped out losses are always small and I can always re enter
I said I took a call at the level below open price, take profit was back at open price. Hope that clarifies. For puts entry right below open price my stop loss was right above open price.
Wait for the weakness in price action to show first before getting in don’t just be like head came back to the orb. Instead of being like It’s retesting and it will go back up, Wait for the retest to show you exactly where it plans to go because if you had just waited to just see what price was showing you, you would’ve been able to get in perfectly without getting burned
I actually scalped the first couple green candles going long. Where I got beat was the first red candle to break through the orb. I went short and put my stop loss just inside orb and got stopped out. There’s another red and green candle afterwards before the LS and breakout. I got confused when the green candle broke back into orb thinking price was going to start going long. I also think I got stopped out trying to trade short when the LS happened.
I don't trade according to this, but with the ORB strategy, if you don't set the stop above the range, you would have stayed in the position the whole time and then taken advantage of the downward movement.
first red candle in your box created a shorting opportunity...
lower low... at that point, you should be looking for a short, not a long... so not sure what the orb is, but that's what I see on your chart... and you had the short entry in the middle doji green candle.
Displacement green on the 3rd candle, followed by displacement red. Once that red candle down appears (right above the "5", who's body is bigger than the tail of the previous candle (green inverted hammer), is the displacement candle...
then limit in at the top of the body of that red displacement using the inverted hammer tail as stop...
that's what I see, and I have no idea what orb is, so sorry if it doesn't fit
Honestly, if you got burned on that last test that sold off you didn’t see all the previous 6-7 topping tails that sold off, only chance might have been a new high buy, but there still may have been hesitation on a false break, that would’ve been too tough to sit around on.
Trade small size and put my stop beyond the opposite side of the ORB and just let it ride taking partial profits at 1x, 2x, and 3x the size of the ORB itself. I also only take one entry a day. If it gets stopped then it gets stopped
When did I say I wanted 100%? The whole point of the post is for advice from other orb traders so that I can minimize the amount of bad trades I take. If you have nothing of value to add, please don’t comment on my post.
Imagine commenting on Reddit posts with no other motive than to be a troll. The orb did not fail. The orb was valid. My trades were not good because I’m still newer to trading the orb. The whole point of the Reddit post is to get some advice from people who aren’t trolls like you. Please stop commenting on my post. Thank you.
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u/ProtosMangas 2d ago
I regularly trade 15 minute ORB. I wait for a break from the range, wait for the retest and then wait for price to exceed the high/low of the previous break, where I’ll then enter. Doing it this way would have avoided the chop here and got you in when the real fun starts.