How to trade the opening range breakout on XAUUSD

Opening range breakout (ORB) defines the high and low of the first N minutes after a session open as a reference range. A break above the high goes long, a break below goes short. The N is usually 15, 30, or 60 minutes depending on style.

On XAUUSD, ORB tends to work best at the New York open (08:30 or 09:30 NY time) because that is when US flow concentrates. The London open also produces tradable ORBs, but the range is often narrower.

The setup is mechanical, but filtering matters.

• Fix the opening range window before the day — 15, 30, or 60 minutes
• Mark the high and low of that window
• Ignore wicks outside the range during the formation period
• Range size should be reasonable relative to ATR — too tight breaks fail, too wide is exhaustion
• Daily bias and prior day structure give you a directional lean

Buy stop above the range high or sell stop below the low, both with a small buffer to avoid wicks. Alternative is a confirmed close beyond the range, which trades fewer fakeouts at the cost of worse entry price.

Stop goes on the opposite side of the range, or at the midpoint for a tighter version. Targets can be a measured move of the range, prior session extremes, or a fixed multiple of risk. Trailing past 1R is common.

ORB fails on days that should not have been traded.

• Low-volatility day where the range was the day — break has nothing behind it
• Range was already a breakout from the prior day, so the next leg is exhausted
• Macro release during or right after the range distorts the structure
• Trader takes both sides of the range when the first break fails — usually doubles the loss

Open replay on a series of consecutive trading days, define your ORB window in advance, and step through the open in real time. Mark the high and low, take the break by your rule, and journal what happened.

After a month of sessions, look at which day types paid and which were chop. The filter you build from that data is worth more than any indicator.