TradeLink MNQ Opening Range Retest — Strategy by bcolabella
By bcolabella
Performance Metrics
- Author: bcolabella
- Symbol: CME_MINI:MNQ1!
- Timeframe: 1 minute
- Profit Factor: ,
Description
TradeLink MNQ Opening Range Retest is a complete, open-source strategy for studying a precisely defined morning breakout-and-retest setup on Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures. It separates five-minute signal formation from one-minute order simulation and exposes the full rules, modeled costs, and limitations.SETUP AND TIMINGUse standard one-minute MNQ candles. The opening range is built from 09:30 through 09:45 in America/New_York time. This timezone handles New York daylight-saving changes independently of the chart display timezone.A five-minute close above the completed range arms a long breakout; a close below arms a short breakout. A later five-minute candle must touch the broken boundary and close outside it in the breakout direction. Long confirmation requires a bullish candle body; short confirmation requires a bearish candle body. The armed setup expires after 30 elapsed minutes and may be replaced by an opposite breakout.Only confirmed signal closes from 10:00 inclusive to 10:15 exclusive are eligible. With five-minute signals, those closes are 10:00, 10:05, and 10:10. There is at most one trade per New York calendar day. The market entry is submitted after confirmation and fills on the next available emulator tick.EXITS AND SIZINGThe stop distance is half the opening-range width, rounded up to the instrument's minimum tick. The target is 1.5 times the stop distance, rounded to a tick. Both distances are fixed relative to the simulated entry fill and do not move with later candles. A flatten order is submitted at noon New York time and fills on the next available tick.The default is one MNQ contract. Position size is fixed, so wider opening ranges produce larger dollar risk. The script does not guarantee a maximum loss or enforce a proprietary firm's trailing drawdown rules. Gaps and slippage can exceed the modeled stop risk.DEFAULT PROPERTIESInitial capital is $50,000 in the backtest ledger. This is a testing assumption, not a representation of buying an evaluation account. Commission is $0.94 per contract per side, with two adverse ticks of slippage on eligible market and stop fills. Limit exits require one tick of price penetration. High bar detail is enabled. The source uses a conservative 20% margin requirement (5x maximum modeled leverage), not a broker-specific margin schedule. At the default one-contract size, this margin setting does not constrain the tested trades. Adjust costs and required capital to your circumstances when studying the script.Signals use five-minute data with lookahead disabled and are consumed only on confirmed one-minute bars that coincide with the five-minute close. The strategy does not recalculate on every tick or after fills. It rejects non-standard charts, other timeframes, and symbols outside the MNQ futures root. Source date inputs can restrict the study period; the default end date permits future paper observation.WHY THESE CHOICESThe contribution is the explicit combination of a completed opening range, a later directional boundary retest, elapsed-time expiry, a narrow confirmation window, fixed fill-relative brackets, one daily attempt, and confirmed higher-timeframe signal handling on a lower-timeframe chart. Opening-range trading itself is a conventional concept; no claim is made to have invented it.The 10:00-10:15 window was selected after examining earlier and later trade cohorts in an extensive historical research process. A wider 09:55-10:20 window and nearby 1.25R and 1.75R targets remained profitable in that same explored history. These checks help describe sensitivity; they are not independent out-of-sample validation.HISTORICAL RESEARCH CONTEXTOn CME_MINI:MNQ1! standard one-minute candles, January 1, 2024 through October 23, 2026, one MNQ produced 168 closed trades, $3,505.16 net after modeled costs, $1,346.12 maximum drawdown, a 1.38 profit factor, and 48.81% profitable trades. Annual net was $375.44 in 2024, $817.22 in 2025, and $2,312.50 through October 23, 2026. The individual trade rows were audited against the report.Doubling modeled commission and slippage left $2,797.32 net with $1,379.74 maximum drawdown. A separate one-minute entry-delay control left $2,170.66 net with $1,741.52 maximum drawdown. These are stress controls, not the published default rules.LIMITATIONSThe reported history has been used repeatedly for research and parameter selection. All annual and neighboring-setting checks are on already-observed data. No untouched holdout, prospective paper record, or live performance is available. The sequence included seven consecutive losing trades and 194 observed calendar days below a previous closed-equity high. One rolling 12-month window was negative, and much of the net profit occurred in 2026.Continuous futures data, contract rolls, available intrabar history, cost settings, and fill assumptions can affect results. The script does not model order-book liquidity or account for all operational delays. It supplies a backtest and chart study; it does not connect a broker, place real orders, or guarantee evaluation passes, payouts, or future profits.Release NotesChart preview updated to illustrate the October 20, 2026 winning long trade. This is a selected historical example, not a representative return or a forecast. Trading rules, sizing, and modeled costs are unchanged; see the full-period results and limitations above.Release NotesVisual update: entries now display Long or Short and all exits display Exit. Completed trades have a green connecting line for profits, a red line for losses, and signed dollar P&L at the midpoint. Breakeven trades use gray. P&L reflects simulated fills and configured commissions in the strategy account currency. The most recent 150 completed trades are annotated. Trading signals, order timing, sizing, stops, targets, and backtest assumptions are unchanged.