Opening Range Breakout (ORB), VWAP, EMA

Trade opening range breakouts in Forex and Indices using VWAP and EMAs for confirmation across New York, Asia, and London sessions. Aim for 1:2 or 1:3 risk-rewa

Published · Updated · Methodology: Technical Indicators

Part of: Opening Range Breakout (ORB)

  • Methodology: Technical Indicators
  • Content type: strategy
  • Timeframes: 5 minutes (for candles forming the range), Not specified for entry/exit, but implies 5-minute candles for range formation
  • Markets: Forex (Divisas), Indices (NASDAQ, SP500, US30, Nikkei, UK100), New York Session, Asia/Tokyo Session, London Session

Indicators used

  • VWAP
  • EMA

Source video

Decoded from: Opening Range Breakout: La Estrategia de Trading Más Sencilla y Poderosa by Cristian Montero — watch the original

Key timestamps:

  • 0:00 - Introduction to the ORB strategy
  • 2:00 - Strategy applicability to sessions and indices
  • 2:49 - Specific New York session timing (8:30 AM - 8:45 AM Colombia time)
  • 3:18 - Defining the 15-minute range (min/max)
  • 3:35 - Entry condition: Breakout with strong volume
  • 4:00 - Example on TradingView SP500
  • 4:25 - Important: Breakout candle should not have a wick
  • 4:35 - Stop loss and Take profit (1:2 or 1:3 R:R)
  • 4:50 - Confirmation indicators: VWAP and EMAs (9 & 20)
  • 5:40 - Strategy profitability (50-70%) and psychology

Strategy overview

An Opening Range Breakout takes the high and low of the first minutes of a session and treats a decisive move outside that band as the day's first directional signal. What distinguishes this entry is the company the breakout keeps: it is presented alongside VWAP and moving averages, so the range break is not read alone but against where the session's average traded price sits and which way the shorter-term trend is leaning. Volume is the third leg — the video's framing is that a break worth taking arrives with conviction behind it, not on a thin drift through the level.

The source is Cristian Montero's Spanish-language video "Opening Range Breakout: La Estrategia de Trading Más Sencilla y Poderosa", and its most practical contribution is timing discipline for traders who do not sit in New York. The session window is stated in Colombia time — the range is built from 8:30 to 8:45 a.m. local — which makes explicit something most ORB material leaves implicit: the range is anchored to the New York cash open, and every trader has to translate that to their own clock before the first candle prints. The walkthrough works on index products, with a TradingView example on the S&P 500, and the video also touches on which sessions and indices the idea travels to.

That 15-minute construction window is itself a choice with consequences. A shorter window produces a tighter range that breaks early and often; a longer one waits out the opening noise at the cost of a wider stop relative to the move. This page covers the concept as the video presents it — the session anchoring, the indicator confluence and the volume condition it emphasizes — rather than a complete mechanical rule set, since the video is taught as a discretionary framework rather than a fully specified system.

Topics

opening range breakout strategy · orb strategy · vwap strategy · ema strategy · forex strategy · indices trading strategy · 5 minute strategy · tradingview strategy · technical indicators · new york session strategy · london session strategy · asia session strategy · trading strategy · swing trading

Frequently asked questions

What is an Opening Range Breakout (ORB) strategy?

It defines a price range from the opening minutes of a session — its high and low — and looks for price to break out of that band as the first directional signal of the day, using the range edges as reference levels for entry and risk.

What session timing does this version use?

The video anchors the range to the New York session and expresses it in Colombia time, building the range between 8:30 and 8:45 a.m. local — a 15-minute window. Traders in other time zones need to convert that to the equivalent local time for the same New York open.

Why combine ORB with VWAP and moving averages?

A range break on its own says only that price left a box. VWAP shows where the session's volume-weighted average price sits, and moving averages show short-term trend direction, so both act as context for whether the break is moving with the session or fighting it. The video also treats volume as confirmation of the break.

Does the opening range work on indices like the S&P 500?

Index products are a common home for ORB because the cash open concentrates volume and volatility into a defined moment, and the video demonstrates it on the S&P 500 in TradingView. Whether it holds up on a given instrument and range length is a question for backtesting on historical intraday data, not assumption.

About this strategy page

This trading strategy was decoded by Strategy Decoder's AI from a public YouTube trading video and turned into a structured, reviewable specification. In the interactive app this page shows the full entry and exit logic, risk management settings, the indicators involved with their parameters, AlgoWizard-compatible logic and a Pine Script export ready for TradingView backtesting — plus an automated backtest verdict when one has been computed for this strategy.

Strategy Decoder catalogs 2,229 decoded strategies. Each one is extracted with confidence scoring, cross-linked to the indicators it uses, and kept up to date as new videos are processed daily. Load this page with JavaScript enabled to use the interactive tools, or start from the strategy explorer to filter by methodology, market and timeframe.

Other versions of this strategy

More decoded strategies