What it does
FXP Opening Range Breakout measures the high and low of the first minutes of a session, draws them as lines across the trading window, and marks the first candle that closes above or below that range with an arrow. By default it uses the first 30 minutes of the London session (08:00 London time) and watches for breakouts until 12:00.
You can switch the session to New York, Tokyo, UTC or plain server time, and change the range length and cut-off time.
How it works
- Each candle's time is converted to the chosen time zone (with your server GMT offset and daylight-saving rule when needed).
- Candles whose open time falls between the session open and open + range length build the range: the highest high and lowest low of those candles.
- After the range is complete and before the cut-off time, each closed candle is tested. A close above range high + buffer is a bullish breakout (blue arrow below the candle); a close below range low - buffer is a bearish breakout (red arrow above it).
- In "first breakout only" mode, the day is finished after one arrow. In "each side" mode, one arrow per direction is allowed, so a failed break followed by a break the other way is shown.
- Only closed candles are processed, so arrows never appear and disappear on the live candle.
How to use it
Copy the .ex5 file into MQL5/Indicators and attach it to an M1 to M15 chart. The chart timeframe must not be longer than the range (for a 30-minute range, use M30 or lower).
The opening range captures the first burst of session activity. A close outside it shows that one side won the opening auction. Typical plans place the stop on the opposite side of the range or at the midpoint and judge the target against the range height; the risk-reward calculator helps you check whether a trade is worth taking. Filtering breakouts by the higher-timeframe trend, or skipping days with major scheduled news, are common refinements.
Settings
| Input | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Time zone for the times below | London | Zone used to read the session times. |
| Session open (HH:MM) | 08:00 | Start of the range. |
| Opening range length (minutes) | 30 | Range duration. |
| Stop looking for breakouts at (HH:MM) | 12:00 | End of the breakout window. |
| Breakouts to mark | First only | First breakout, or first on each side. |
| Extra distance beyond the range (pips) | 0.0 | Buffer that the close must clear. |
| Server GMT offset in winter | 2 | Broker server offset. |
| Server daylight-saving rule | US | Summer shift of the server clock. |
| Days of history to analyse | 20 | Number of past days. |
| Range high / low / midpoint colors | blue / red / grey | Line colors. |
| Alert on breakout | false | One alert per bar. |
Limitations
- Many breakouts fail and return into the range, especially on quiet days. A buffer reduces, but does not remove, false breaks.
- The range is built from candle open times, so a candle that starts inside the window counts fully even if part of it is outside.
- A wrong server offset moves the range to the wrong candles.
- Spreads often widen at session opens, which affects real entries. Trading involves substantial risk of loss.