Opening Range Breakout Screener for F&O Stocks
The first few minutes of the trading day set the tone. The high and low a stock makes in that window, its opening range, act as a line in the sand that the rest of the session trades around. When price breaks that range on volume, it often trends in the breakout direction. Stolo's opening range breakout screener scans every F&O stock for that pattern at once, live or on any past date, and lets you tighten the definition with a set of quality filters.
This screener is in Beta. It is fully usable, but some numbers are still being refined, which is noted where it matters below.
The problem it solves
The opening range breakout is a well-known intraday setup, but running it by hand is hard. You would need to track the 9:15 range on 180-plus stocks, watch each one for a clean break, check whether the break had volume, and do all of it in the first hour when the market moves fastest. Nobody can. The screener does the tracking for the whole universe and hands you the breakouts that already pass your rules.
What is an opening range breakout?
The setup has three parts.
- The opening range forms. From 9:15 AM, mark the highest high and lowest low over the next few minutes. Stolo lets you choose 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes. A tight range points to indecision that can release into a strong move. A wide range means a lot of the day's travel may already be behind you.
- Price breaks the range. The first time a candle closes above the range high is a bullish breakout. The first close below the range low is a bearish breakout. A break that comes with a jump in volume, and that holds rather than snapping back inside, is the higher-quality signal.
- The move follows through, or it does not. A breakout that closes the day near the extreme of its range trended. One that closes back in the middle reversed. The screener reports both so you can tell them apart.
The textbook trade is to enter on the breakout, place a stop on the far side of the range or at its midpoint, and trail or exit by the close. If open interest is a new idea, the trading glossary and the open interest guide are good background, though the ORB screener itself is a pure price and volume tool.
Key terms explained
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| OR duration | Length of the opening range in minutes: 5, 15, 30 or 60, measured from 9:15 AM. |
| OR high and OR low | The top and bottom of the opening range. |
| OR width percent | The size of the range as a percentage of the day's open. A core quality filter: skip stocks whose range is already very wide. |
| Breakout time | The clock time of the first candle to close beyond the range. |
| Past OR | How far beyond the range edge price closed on the breakout, as a signed percentage. A larger number is a more decisive break. |
| Breakout volume ratio | Volume on the breakout candle divided by the average opening-range candle volume. Above 1.5 to 2 signals real participation. |
| Day-range position | Where the stock closed within its full day range, on a 0 to 100 scale. Near 100 on a bullish break means the move held. |
| Gap-and-go | The stock opened outside the previous day's range and kept going. Can be excluded. |
| Intrabar breakout | Count the break when price touches beyond the range, rather than waiting for a candle to close beyond it. Earlier, noisier. |
| Reversed | Both edges of the opening range were broken during the day. A whipsaw session for that name. |
| MFE and MAE | Maximum favourable and maximum adverse excursion: the best and worst the trade reached after the breakout. Shown in the detail panel and currently approximated. |
| EOD P&L | History mode only. A simulated result: enter at the range edge on the breakout, exit at the day's close. |
Filters
The filters split into two groups: how the range is defined, and how strict the breakout has to be.
Range setup
- OR duration. 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes.
- Direction. Bullish, bearish, or both.
- Universe. All F&O, NIFTY 50, Bank, or Financial.
Breakout quality
- Minimum move past OR. Require the breakout close to clear the edge by at least a set percentage, so tiny pokes through the level are ignored.
- Breakout volume ratio. Require the breakout candle's volume to be at least a set multiple of the opening-range average.
- Maximum OR width. Ignore stocks whose opening range is wider than a set percentage of price.
- Breakout before. Only count breakouts that happen before a cut-off time such as 11:00, so you are not entering late in the session.
- Exclude gap-and-go. Drop stocks that opened outside the previous day's high or low.
- Intrabar breakout. Switch from close-based to touch-based breakout detection.
Filter changes are applied instantly and the URL updates as you go, so you can bookmark or share a specific scan and it reopens with the same settings.
A worked example
Take NIFTY on a trending morning, with the range set to 15 minutes.
- From 9:15 to 9:30, NIFTY makes a high of 22,050 and a low of 21,960. The day opened at 22,000, so the opening range width is (22,050 minus 21,960) divided by 22,000, which is about 0.41 percent. That is a reasonably tight range.
- At 10:05 a one-minute candle closes at 22,090. That is 0.18 percent above the range high, on volume 2.3 times the average opening-range candle. This is a bullish breakout that clears a sensible minimum-move filter and a 2x volume filter.
- NIFTY closes the day at 22,180, near its high, so the day-range position is close to 100 and the move held.
- In history mode, the simulated result is entry at the range edge of 22,050 and exit at the close of 22,180, a gain of about 0.59 percent on the index.
A trader taking this setup might have entered around 22,090 with a stop at the range low of 21,960, risking roughly 130 points to make 90 into the close, and trailing the stop up as the trend developed.
How to use the screener in Stolo
- Log in to Stolo and open Screeners from the main menu, then choose Opening Range Breakout.
- In the filter rail on the left, set the OR duration, direction and universe.
- Add quality filters. A minimum move past the range and a volume ratio of 2 or more are the two that do the most work.
- Read the results table: breakout time, distance past the range, range width, volume ratio, day-range position, and in history mode the simulated EOD P&L.
- Click any row to open the breakout detail panel. It draws the opening-range band, a whisker for the full day range, a marker at the breakout and a dot at the close, alongside the favourable and adverse excursion for that trade.
- To study a rule set, switch to history mode with the header date picker and step through recent sessions, watching the EOD P&L column.
info
Stolo does not place or manage trades. The ORB screener is a research tool. Use it to build and test a rule set, then execute through your connected broker.
Live mode and history mode
- Live. No date selected. The scan runs against today's session as it unfolds and refreshes as new candles print. Early in the day the opening range may still be forming and the table can be empty, which is normal.
- History. Pick a past date from the header. Stolo recomputes the opening range and every breakout for that day and adds the simulated enter-on-breakout, exit-at-close result. This is how you measure how the setup, with your exact filters, would have performed over a run of sessions.
How traders use it
- Morning shortlist. 15-minute range, both directions, volume ratio at least 2, breakout before 10:30. Produces a tight list of the day's cleanest breakouts to watch or trade.
- Index-aligned breakouts. Set the universe to NIFTY 50 and take only breakouts in the same direction as the index itself, so you are trading with the broader move.
- Range-compression plays. Set a low maximum OR width to surface the most coiled stocks, which tend to travel furthest once they release.
- Rule-set backtest. Fix your filters, run history mode across the last 20 to 30 sessions, and total the EOD P&L column to get a rough read on the edge.
Beta and limitations
- Maximum favourable and adverse excursion are approximations. They are estimated from the full-day range against the range edge, not the true extremes after the breakout. Use them as a guide, not a precise figure.
- History scans are computed on demand. The first run for a date and filter combination takes a moment, then it is cached.
- The simulated P&L is naive. It assumes entry exactly at the range edge and a hold to the close, with no slippage, no stop and no intraday exit. It is a study metric, not a projection of live results.
Columns and behaviour may change as the screener moves out of Beta.
Frequently asked questions
What is an opening range breakout?
The opening range is the highest high and lowest low a stock makes in a fixed window right after the open, commonly the first 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes from 9:15 AM. An opening range breakout happens when price later trades decisively above that high, which is a bullish break, or below that low, which is a bearish break. The idea is that once the market resolves the early tug of war, it often trends in the breakout direction for the rest of the session.
Which opening range length should I use?
A 5-minute range gives the earliest signals but the most noise and false breaks. A 15-minute range is the common middle ground and filters out much of the opening whipsaw. A 30 or 60-minute range gives fewer, higher-quality signals but you enter later and the day's move may be partly done. Start at 15 minutes, then test 5 and 30 in history mode on your universe.
How does the Stolo ORB screener detect a breakout?
After the opening range window closes, the screener watches each stock's one-minute candles. By default it records a breakout when a candle closes beyond the range edge, which filters out most fakeouts. If you turn on the intrabar option it records the breakout the moment price touches beyond the edge, which is earlier but produces more false signals. The first qualifying break in each direction is the one it reports.
Can I backtest the ORB screener on past dates?
Yes. Switch to history mode and pick a date from the header date picker. The screener recomputes the opening range and every breakout for that session and adds a simulated result for each match: enter at the range edge on the breakout, exit at the close. Lock your filters and step through twenty or thirty past sessions to see how the rule set behaves.
What is a gap-and-go open and why would I exclude it?
A gap-and-go is when a stock opens well outside the previous day's range and simply keeps running in that direction. The breakout in that case is really gap continuation, not a range that built and released within the session. Turn on Exclude gap-and-go to drop stocks whose open was already outside yesterday's high or low, so you focus on ranges that formed and broke during today's trade.
What does the breakout volume ratio tell me?
It is the volume on the breakout candle divided by the average candle volume during the opening range. A ratio near 1 means the break happened on ordinary volume and is easy to fade. A ratio of 2 or more means real participation pushed price through the level, which is the kind of break that tends to follow through. Filtering for a volume ratio above 1.5 or 2 is one of the most effective quality checks.
What does the day-range position column mean?
It is a 0 to 100 score for where the stock closed within its full high-to-low range for the day. On a bullish breakout you want this near 100, meaning the stock held its gains into the close. Near 50 or lower after a bullish break means the move faded. It is a quick way to separate breakouts that trended from breakouts that reversed.
Can I scan only NIFTY 50 or banking stocks?
Yes. The Universe control offers All F&O, NIFTY 50, Bank and Financial. Choosing a smaller universe also makes the scan run faster. The default is NIFTY 50 with a 5-minute range so the first result set loads quickly, and you widen from there.
Why are there no results early in the morning?
In live mode the opening range is not complete until the window ends. With a 15-minute range there is nothing to break until after 9:30, and the first breakouts usually appear a few minutes later. If the table is empty just after the open, that is expected; give it time or shorten the range to 5 minutes.
What stop loss do opening range breakout traders use?
The two common choices are the opposite edge of the opening range, which is wider and gives the trade room, or the midpoint of the range, which is tighter but stops out more often. Some traders use the low of the breakout candle. The screener does not place or manage stops; it shows you the range edges so you can size the trade around them.
Is the ORB screener accurate, given it is in Beta?
The opening range, the breakout time, the volume ratio and the day-range position are computed directly from one-minute data and are reliable. The maximum favourable and adverse excursion figures are currently approximated from the full-day range against the range edge rather than the true post-breakout extremes, so treat those two as a guide. History scans are computed on demand and cached.
Which plan includes the ORB screener?
The Opening Range Breakout screener is part of Stolo's Pro analysis access and can be tried on the Trial plan, which starts at 299 rupees. See the subscription plans page for the current tiers.
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