QQQ 5-minute ORB, only on 'high exposure' days
A classic Crabel-style long breakout of QQQ's first 5 minutes, taken only on days when a market-regime reading is strong, and held to the close.
What they did
Trading Time Machine tested a long-only 5-minute opening range breakout on QQQ from April 2007 to October 2026. A buy stop sits 1 tick above the 9:30–9:35 high, good until 3:35 PM ET, with one trade a day and exit at the 4:00 close (no target, no stop in the test). The trade is only taken when their proprietary 'exposure' reading, published nightly after the close, is 70 or higher. They sized at 1.5x capital and charged $0.0035/share commission.
How it went
Per the author: 19.0% a year versus 16.1% for buying and holding QQQ, worst drawdown 12.7% versus 53.4%, about 69 trades a year, 61.0% winners, average win 0.86% vs average loss 0.68%, net 0.26% per trade, profit factor 1.98, 18 of 20 years profitable (2022: +12.1%), in the market about 27% of days.
Sources:
Worth knowing
- The author's own caveat: the 70 threshold and the 5-minute range were chosen after seeing the whole period, so this is in-sample.
- Also per the author: simply buying the open on the same filtered mornings made 23.9% a year, so the edge is the filter, not the breakout.
- A tight stop at the opening-range low cut the annual return to 7.9%. The author suggests a wide (about 5%) disaster stop instead.
- The exposure reading is proprietary. Any proxy you choose (e.g. QQQ above its 50-day average) is your own test and won't match their results.
- Their 1.5x sizing uses leverage. Start at 1x or less on paper.
The prompt
Trade QQQ on 1-minute or 5-minute bars, long only, max one trade per day.
Before the open: check my regime gate, which is [Trading Time Machine's published exposure reading ≥ 70 / my own proxy: QQQ closed above its 50-day SMA AND the 50-day is rising]. If the gate is off, do nothing today and say so.
If the gate is on:
1. Record the high of the 9:30–9:35 ET range.
2. Propose a buy stop for $[amount, start at 1x or less of my paper capital] of QQQ at that high + $[0.01], valid until [3:35 PM ET].
3. If filled, place a protective stop [5]% below the entry (disaster stop only).
4. Exit at the [3:59 PM ET] close. No profit target.
Log the gate value, range high, fill, exit and P/L after $[0.0035]/share costs. Every Friday, compare with simply buying QQQ at the open on the same gated days.
SAFETY DEFAULTS (keep unless you deliberately change them):
- Use the PAPER trading account only. Never touch a live account.
- Before every order, show me: symbol, side, size, order type, limit price, stop, and the rule that triggered it. Then WAIT for my "approve".
- Hard limits: max [$500] per trade, max [3] open positions, stop all trading for the day after a loss of [$300].
- Log every signal, decision and fill to [a running log / spreadsheet] with timestamps.To go fully autonomous: (1) run on paper for at least [4–8 weeks] or [30+ trades]; (2) delete the 'WAIT for my approve' line and keep the hard limits; (3) switch to live keys or account. On Robinhood, turn off trade approvals in your agent settings, but note that some orders can still require in-app approval or acknowledging a pre-trade alert, so unattended execution isn't guaranteed for every order. On IBKR, standard AI Integration asks for approval on every order. Its new Autonomous Trading mode (eligible individual non-margin accounts, after 10 approved trades) lets the AI trade a funded AI Partition without per-order approval. Never remove the daily loss limit.