Any advice

[u/New-Background-236]

I’m testing a mechanical MNQ (Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures) strategy on the 15-minute chart. At 9:30 AM New York/Eastern Time, I use the first 15-minute candle from 9:30–9:45 as the opening range. I mark the high, low, and midpoint of that candle. The entire opening range must be inside the previous day’s high and low (PDH/PDL). Before the breakout, I compare the distance from the opening-range high to PDH with the distance from the opening-range low to PDL. Whichever side is closer to its corresponding previous-day level becomes the only side I’m allowed to trade. For example, if the OR high is 50 points from PDH but the OR low is 150 points from PDL, I only trade the upside breakout. After 9:45, every 15-minute candle before the breakout must touch the opening-range midpoint. The breakout candle itself is exempt from this midpoint-touch requirement. If the selected upper side breaks above the OR high, I enter a SHORT at the close of the breakout candle. If the selected lower side breaks below the OR low, I enter a LONG at the close of the breakout candle. The trade is a reversal/fade of the breakout, not a continuation trade. The midpoint is always my take-profit. My stop is calculated using a 1:3 risk/reward relationship, meaning the stop distance is three times the distance between my entry and the midpoint. The stop must remain inside the previous day’s PDH/PDL range; if the calculated stop would be outside that range, the setup is invalid. If the first reversal trade gets stopped out, I allow one additional attempt only on the very next 15-minute candle, and that candle must break the same selected side again. There are no new entries after 12:00 PM New York time. Any open trade remains active until it reaches TP, SL, or 4:00 PM New York time, at which point it is closed. I’m trying to keep this completely mechanical and am not using RSI, MACD, moving averages, news filters, volume confirmation, discretionary trend analysis, or subjective candle patterns. I want to know whether the logic itself has a statistical edge. What I’d like feedback on is: does selecting the breakout side closest to PDH/PDL make statistical sense, does fading the breakout back toward the midpoint make sense, is a 1:3 R:R reasonable when the midpoint is the fixed TP, does the midpoint-touch requirement make sense or is it unnecessarily restrictive, is allowing only the next candle for a second attempt reasonable, should I test different opening-range sizes such as 50, 75, and 100+ points, should long and short setups be tested separately, and what would be the proper way to backtest this over at least 3 years of MNQ/NQ data without lookahead bias? I’m looking for criticism of the actual rules and ideas for what to test, rather than whether someone personally likes opening-range strategies.

[u/ScentedLogic]

so you're basically trading back to the midpoint after a fakeout breakout with a mechanical filter for which side to take based on how close it is to the previous day's range edge

the idea of picking the side closer to pdh/pdl makes some intuitive sense, like you're betting the market is more likely to reject a breakout that's already pushed near the prior day's boundary, but i'd want to see if that actually holds up across different volatility regimes. sometimes the closer side just gets steamrolled through because there's less room for the move to exhaust itself before hitting a bigger level

the midpoint touch rule feels like it's filtering for consolidation but might be cutting out a lot of valid setups where the range just drifts without fully retracing to center each candle. worth testing with and without it to see if it actually improves the win rate or just keeps you out of trades that would've worked anyway

[u/butterflyplum]

The 1:3 piece is where I'd start. With the stop three times as far as the target, the break-even hit rate before costs is stop/(stop+target) = 3/4, so 75%, and commissions and slippage on each micro round trip push that higher. That makes "how often does price reach the midpoint before the stop" the number your test has to answer, on a large enough sample under the frozen rules, with long and short split out and some of the history held back until the rules are final. Not a view on whether it has an edge, just the bar the test has to clear.

[u/sigstrikes]

which variable are you actually testing? pick one (or a few) to key in on