The short answer
No. The best London opening-range setting on gold made +0.13R a trade in the year it was chosen on, then -0.02R the next year, the same as random sides. The New York version lost -0.09R. The NR7 breakout (trading the day after the narrowest range of seven) beat its control in 2021-24 but lost in both recent years.
What we tested
- Markets
- Gold for the opening range; gold, EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, US500, US100 for NR7
- Period
- Opening range: chosen on year 1, judged on year 2. NR7: 2021-24, year 1, year 2
- Opening range: the high and low of the first 30-60 minutes of the London or New York session; enter on a break with a stop at the other side and a fixed target. Nine settings tried on year 1, the best one judged on year 2.
- NR7: a day whose range is the smallest of the last seven; next day a buy stop at its high and a sell stop at its low, stop at the other side, exit at that day's close.
Results
| Session | Setting | Trades | Average R | Random sides |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | 30 min, 1.5R | 258 | -0.02R | -0.02R |
| New York | 30 min, 2R | 257 | -0.09R | -0.02R |
The London setting made +0.13R (profit factor 1.26) on year 1, the year it was chosen on.
| Period | Trades | Average R | Random sides | Markets positive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-24 | 821 | +0.009R | -0.105R | 4 of 6 |
| Year 1 | 193 | -0.035R | -0.012R | 3 of 6 |
| Year 2 | 195 | -0.027R | -0.087R | 1 of 6 |
What it means
- Picking the best of nine settings on past data produced a convincing result that vanished on the next year: the tuning trap in one line.
- Intraday breakout studies in FX found stable-looking patterns but no excess returns after realistic costs.
Limits of this test
- Gold only for the opening range; other markets were covered by the intraday range study.
Frequently asked questions
Does the London breakout strategy work on gold?
In our test the best London opening-range breakout setting on gold made money in the year it was chosen on and lost slightly the next year, the same as random entries.
How every test on these pages works
- Prices: the broker's own bars from an FTMO cTrader account. Fills are simulated minute by minute on one-minute bars; when one minute touches both the stop and the target, the stop is assumed to fill first.
- Costs: the broker's bid/ask spread measured by hour of day, commission per market, and the broker's own overnight swap rates for anything held past the daily rollover.
- Periods: year 1 = 24 Oct 2024 to 23 Oct 2025, year 2 = 24 Oct 2025 to 24 Oct 2026. Daily rules also use Dec 2020 to Oct 2024 ("2021-24"). Rules are written down before testing and are not tuned on the period that judges them.
- Controls: every rule is compared with entries that have no reason behind them (random sides, random days, or the same rule at fake levels), so a result has to beat chance, not just be positive.
- R is the trade's risk (entry to stop). An average of +0.10R means the average trade made a tenth of what it risked; -0.10R means it lost a tenth.
The full results for the rules RezSync Algo trades, by market and risk profile with every trade downloadable, are in the backtest report.
Related research
Research, not financial advice. These are simulated results on historical prices: they involve no real money, are produced with hindsight of the rules, and past results do not predict future ones. Costs and fills are modelled, and your broker's prices and costs will differ. Trading leveraged products carries a high risk of losing money; test on a demo account first.