Open Drive

Open Drive is a market profile concept introduced by Jim Dalton. It occurs when the price moves directionally and persistently for the first 30 minutes from the cash market open.

It is necessary to use 30-minute bars as there needs to be enough time to measure an extreme move of the cash open. This means there will be fewer trades than other strategies using faster time periodicities.

The script finds open drives from these time points 0700/ 0800 and 1300/1430.

The entry signal also has a breakout threshold using the 5-bar high and 5-bar low to only take trades moving away from the prior 5-bar range. This weeds out most mid-range trades and small range expansion bars.

If the price has had a strong move from the open and has broken either below the prior 5-bar low or above the prior 5-bar high by an amount equal to the prior 5-bar range a trade is entered in the direction of the move.

The Exit criteria; exit after 3 bars which is 90mins when using a 30min periodicity.

Note, this script is shared to show that momentum generated on or around the cash open tends to persist. The entry and exits of this strategy are quite naive but there are plenty of ways to take more aggressive entries on faster time frames when an open drive occurs. The times chosen for this strategy will suit stock index futures mainly. The user can experiment with other futures products and their corresponding pit/ cash open hours.

Google "open drive market profile" for more information on open drives and market profile concepts.

Happy trading!