Wide Spread 7, What's Next: Smaller Range, No Follow-Through

A Wide Spread 7 (WS7) occurs when a session's high-to-low range is the widest of the past seven sessions. In Toby Crabel's framework, narrow days signal contraction and wide days signal expansion. Traders typically use the narrow day as a setup for a trade at the next open. This study reverses the question: what happens after a WS7, and is the wide day itself tradable?

 WS7 (gold-colored bars) in Natural Gas (NG). Oct 21, 2026: Widest range in 19 trading days. 

 

It addresses four questions: how wide a WS7 is, in both range and closing position; whether it breaks out of a narrow day; what happens in the following session across 21 instruments (7 futures and 14 FX pairs, October 2024 to date); and how long runs of wide days persist. The main finding is that the next session has a smaller range roughly five times in six, while its close does not follow the wide day’s direction. WS7s are not rare: they occur in 14.4% of sessions, or about one in seven, roughly the rate expected if ranges were randomly shuffled. The WS7 itself is not an unusual signal. The recurring contraction that follows is the more significant finding.

 

 

WS7 (gold-colored bars) in the Mexican Peso (USD/MXN). Oct 21, 2026: Widest range in 8 trading days.

The Day Itself

A WS7 is a large day and an ordinary kind of large. The median is 1.71 times the day before it, 1.59 times the average true range of the previous fourteen sessions, and 1.53% of the price. A WS4 that never becomes a WS7 is milder, 1.41 times the prior day and barely over its recent average range. The WS7 is the widest session in a median of fourteen days. Two in three are the widest in twenty sessions or fewer. One in eight is the widest in more than sixty, and that tail is the climax, not the typical bar.

 

How Big a WS7 Is: Range against the prior day, against ATR(14), and against the Close.

The WS4 row includes the WS7 days.

 

Up and down split evenly. The up day closes a median of +0.91%. The down day closes a median of −0.96%. The next session's average close is −0.04% after the up day and +0.10% after the down day. The range gives way. The price barely moves. The median giveback of the wide day's close-to-close thrust is 8% of that thrust, because the next day is too small to give the move back and too aimless to extend it.

Where It Comes From

The cycle is the useful part, and it runs in one direction. A tight day is followed by a larger day. A wide day is followed by a smaller one. That is Crabel's Contraction/Expansion Principle, the same cycle Larry Williams calls the Natural Cycle of Range Change.

 Small Range, Then What: Same 21 markets and the same sessions.

 Green: the next range is larger at least 80% of the time. Rose: the expansion has already printed.

An NR7 is followed by a larger range 82.8% of the time, at 1.46 times the narrow day. An IDnr4 is next, 81.4% and 1.44 times. An NR4 is 76.3% and 1.34 times. An ordinary day is a coin flip, 0.99 times yesterday. Futures, the majors, and the volatile pairs give the same ratios. The strongest cell is an IDnr4 on the futures: larger the next day 85% of the time, 1.48 times, on 254 sessions. Connors and Raschke built the inside-day (ID) and NR4 trade on that same fact: the coil is the setup, and the break is the next session.

 

That larger day is not, as a rule, a WS7. The session after an NR4 is a WS4 on 25.1% of days. The base rate is 24.8%. The session after an NR7 is a WS7 on 12.7% of days, against 14.4% on any day. The expansion is real, and it is modest. It is bigger than the coil. It is not the widest week of the month, and the coil does not make that outcome more likely. The definitions used here are his: a WS4 is the unique widest of four sessions, a WS7 the unique widest of seven, the mirror of NR4 and NR7.

 

So the setup is the day before. The WS7 is the result. Only about half of WS4 days were even preceded by an NR, an NR4, or an inside day (ID), which is how often those bars occur anyway. A wide day is not the signature of an IDnr4 breaking. It is just a wide day.

 

The Next Session

The session after a WS7 is narrower 83.9% of the time, and that range is 0.65 of the spike. Crude Oil does it on 90.9% of its 66 cases. The Yen (USD/JPY), the Swedish Krona (USD/SEK), and the Norwegian Krone (USD/NOK) do it on about 88%. Nasdaq keeps its range the most and is still narrower 77% of the time. Another WS4 the next day is slightly less common than on an ordinary day, 21.5% against 24.8%. A second outside day (OD) falls to 3% from an 11% base. The expansion does not immediately engulf again.

 

Green: next range narrower 85% or more, or the close continues 55% or more.

Rose: the close continues 40% or less.

 

The close is the part that tempts a trade, and it does not pay. The next close follows the WS7 only 46.2% of the time. Two WS7 days in three finish in the outer quarter of their range. Those follow through 45.1% of the time. A close on the extreme is not a reason to hold.

 

The green cells on the right of that table are the exceptions, and they are small. Crude's up-close continued on 70% of 30 days. Bitcoin's down-close continued on 62% of 37, and the Krona's on 65% of 34. The Yen failed in both directions, 38% and 30%. Natural Gas printed the largest average up-close in the set, +6.86%, and the next session still went with it less than half the time. Same range cycle. Different next close. None of those cells is large enough to become a system.

 

An inside day (ID) does show up more often the next session, 28% after a WS7 against a 14% base. Part of that is arithmetic. A wide bar is an easy container to trade inside. It is still the contraction shape that becomes more common. An NR4 the next morning does not. It stays near its ordinary one-in-four rate, and when it does appear the spike is still inside its four-day window, so "narrowest of four" is easy. That is not yet a fresh coil.

 

Gold (GC), trading on Oct 22, 2026, following an NR7 and 4BNR on Oct 21 (gold-colored bars in the chart above), its narrowest range in 192 sessions: Before noon, GC had already transitioned into a WS7. Williams' Natural Cycle of Range Change in action. What’s next? A tighter range? A reversal up? A continuation down? An inside day (ID)? No prediction. No guessing. No rushing. Patience pays: Yesterday's Crabel pattern always serves as the setup. The trade is entered at the next session's open. The system is the order. The strategy is which days to use it, and how to manage it once it is on. [The grey dashed channel in the chart above is a Nadaraya–Watson Envelope (8, 2), and the grey, blue dotted line Drummond's PLdot.]

When a WS7 Streaks

A streak here means consecutive sessions that are each a WS7. The chance of another one does not grow as the run gets longer, and it does not shrink until the sample runs out. A second WS7 arrives 16.2% of the time. A third, 2.6%. A fourth, 0.46%. A random day is a WS7 14.4% of the time, so the label has almost no memory. About five of these days in six are the end of the run. Once one has printed, the expected extra length is 0.2 sessions.

 

When a WS7 keeps coming: The chance of another WS7 does not rise as the run gets longer.

 

Four in a row happened six times in two years, across all 21 markets. Five never did. The session after the fourth day was narrower than that fourth day in every case. In five of the six, the next five sessions all stayed under it. Nasdaq, in the first week of November 2025, is the one that made a new high range later that week. None of the six was a four-day trend. The close flips inside the run. Gold and the New Zealand Dollar against the Yen (NZD/JPY) rose for two sessions and fell for two, while the range kept making highs. The expansion is in the range. The fourth day is where it stops.

 

What to Do with All This

An NR7 or an IDnr4 says the next range expands against the coil about five times in six, by roughly half again. That is the session to work. If today has already printed the WS7, the expansion you were waiting for has been spent. Do not arm another breakout because the range was wide. Expect something near two-thirds of that range on the next session. Stand aside, or trade a much smaller day.

 

Do not chase the close. Direction is a coin flip, slightly against the wide day, on futures and on FX together. Do not fade the whole move either. The next session only walks back a small fraction of it. Crude's up-day is the one continuation worth a look, and it is thirty days. The Yen is the close that fails most often. Neither changes the rule for the other nineteen markets. If a second WS7 prints, you are in the 16%. Take something off if you are still long or short from the coil. A third is one start in forty. A fourth is a list of six, and the next session contracted in all six. There was no fifth in this study window to wait for.

 

The next setup is the next real contraction, once the spike has left the lookback. An inside day (ID) the next morning is a pause inside a wide bar, not automatically a new NR4. A fresh NR4 or IDnr4 after that spike has dropped out of the window is the coil again. Then the cycle applies, and the trade is that next session, not the wide one you just had.

 

See also:

TPR (2026) - How to Trade the Toby Crabel Patterns.

TPR (2026) - Inside Day, What's Next: Continuation, Reversal, or No Trade.

TPR (2026) - Outside Day, What's Next: Contraction, Not Continuation.

Linda Raschke (1995) - Capturing Trend Days. 

 

  Crabel Pattern Occurrence Stats for 7 Futures and 14 FX pairs, October 2024 to date.

Outside Day, What's Next: Contraction, Not Continuation

An Inside Day (ID) is contraction. An Outside Day (OD) is one form the subsequent expansion can take. Across 7 futures markets and 14 FX pairs, the expansion is real, but the Outside Day (OD) remains the minority outcome. Since January 1, 2020, an Outside Day (OD) has occurred in about 9–13% of sessions. After an Inside Day (ID), that rises to 14–24%.

 

Outside Day, What's Next? Crabel Pattern Statistics across 7 futures markets and 14 FX pairs, from 2020 to date.  

After an IDnr4, the rate is usually a little higher, reaching about 30% on the Swedish Krona (USD/SEK). That is roughly twice the baseline rate. It is not a coin flip, and it is not a rule. 

 

On the E-mini S&P 500 (ES), 42 of 184 Inside Days (ID) were followed by an Outside Day (OD): 22.8%, against a baseline of 12.5%. The other 142 were not. For the E-mini S&P 500, an IDnr4 did not improve the rate: it remained 22.8%. But it did raise the rate for the Dow (YM), from 22.3% to 27.5%; Gold (GC), from 18.2% to 27.1%; and most major FX pairs.

 

S&P 500 E-mini Futures (daily bars): Outside Days (OD) and Inside Days (ID).

OD: A bar whose high is above the previous high and whose low is below the previous low, so the session takes out both sides of the prior bar. ID: A bar whose high is below the previous high and whose low is above the previous low, so the session sits inside the prior bar. 

Futures show a cleaner pattern than FX. The E-mini S&P 500 (ES), Nasdaq-100 (NQ), Dow (YM), Crude Oil (CL), and Natural Gas (NG) sit around 21–24% after an Inside Day (ID). The Euro (EUR/USD), Yen (USD/JPY), Forint (USD/HUF), and Rand (USD/ZAR) are closer to 14%. The pattern is the same, but the lift is smaller in FX pairs whose daily bars are defined by the New York session, even though the underlying market trades nearly around the clock.

 

 Nasdaq-100 (NQ), Oct 20, 2026.

  

What That Means

An Inside Day (ID) tells that the session stayed within the prior day's range. That is balance, not direction. The next session must make the decision. Crabel's framework is that contraction precedes expansion. The trade is the breakout in the next session, not a bet that the next bar will be an Outside Day (OD).

 

An Outside Day (OD) is the loud version of expansion: price takes out both extremes of the prior bar. But expansion can take quieter forms—a break of only one side, a trend day that never reaches the opposite extreme, or a move beyond the range that subsequently returns inside. Those moves can still deliver the expansion the setup was designed to capture. Waiting for an Outside Day (OD) means passing up most of the trades the pattern is meant to produce.

 

IDnr4 is the tighter version of the setup: the bar is inside the prior bar and has the narrowest range of the past four sessions. Crabel preferred it to an Inside Day (ID) alone, an NR4 alone, or an opening-range breakout (ORB) taken indiscriminately every day. The data broadly support that preference. In the table above, the Outside Day (OD) rate after an IDnr4 is usually a little higher than after a plain Inside Day (ID). But even here, an Outside Day (OD) remains the minority outcome.

 

 Crude Oil (CL), Oct 21, 2026.

What the Other Work Says

► Crabel trades the next session as a two-sided opening-range breakout (ORB) after an ID or IDnr4, unless the market is already running. In that case, he places the stop against the prevailing move and takes only the breakout in its direction. A wide-range day (WS) or an Outside Day (OD) means the expansion has already happened. It is not a fresh setup.

 

► Larry Williams treats the Inside Day (ID) as congestion and a potentially reliable short-term signal, but his published application is directional. In his course material, an Inside Day (ID) with a down close, when price was already below its level ten days earlier, was followed by a higher close the next day about 71% of the time in the S&P. That is a directional bias, not a breakout rule.

 

Williams' Outside Day Rule is a separate trade. An Outside Day (OD) that closes below the prior day's low is a buy; one that closes above the prior day's high is a sell. The logic is that the close signals rejection of the move beyond the prior extreme. Williams is fading the Outside Day (OD), not predicting that one will follow an Inside Day (ID) .

 

► Connors and Raschke took Crabel's IDnr4 setup and added explicit trade management. In Street Smarts, the rule is to place a buy stop one tick above the IDnr4 and a sell stop one tick below it for the next session only. If stopped out, reverse the position. If the trade is not profitable within two days, exit at the close.

 

Their central insight is useful: one can anticipate volatility expansion without knowing its direction. They also required a volatility filter—six-day historical volatility below half the 100-day reading—before taking the ID or NR4 setup (Street Smarts: The ID/NR4 Rules). The same idea appears in the popgun pattern, an Inside Day (ID) followed by an Outside Day (OD), and in the NR7-Inside hybrid. 

 

Later tests of a plain 30-minute opening-range breakout after an Inside Day (ID) have not consistently outperformed taking the breakout every day. Contraction narrows the opening range (ORB), but it does not, by itself, guarantee a better close-to-close result. 

 

What to Do After an ID or IDnr4

Do not enter on the bar that just printed. The pattern is yesterday's; the trade is in the next session. Prefer IDnr4 to a plain Inside Day (ID). The range is tighter, the contraction more pronounced, and in the Crabel Pattern Scanner sample the probability of a subsequent Outside Day (OD) is usually a little higher.

 

Use a two-sided breakout unless the intermediate trend is already running. If it is, take only the breakout in the trend's direction. A gap aligned with the run supports continuation; a break against it is the one to skip.

 

The entry is a break of the Inside Day's high or low, or a breakout from the Opening Range (OR) using Stretch—not a hope that the session will become an Outside Day (OD). If price breaks one side and holds, that is the trade. If it breaks both sides and closes back inside, the expansion has failed (Connors and Raschke's dual-stop version).

 

Expect an Outside Day (OD) roughly one session in four or five after an Inside Day (ID) in futures, and closer to one in six or seven in the quieter FX pairs. Size the trade for the more likely alternative. Most sessions will not engulf the prior range.

 

If the next session does produce an Outside Day (OD), the expansion has already occurred. Do not treat that bar as a fresh contraction setup. Williams would instead examine where it closed. A close below the prior low is his buy signal; a close above the prior high is his sell signal. That is a separate reversal trade, distinct from the breakout that followed the Inside Day (ID).

 

Stand aside when the Inside Day (ID) forms in choppy conditions with no established trend, or when the market opens beyond both sides of the range before you can execute the setup. The pattern is a contained session followed by a decision. If the market has already made that decision at the open, the setup is gone.

 

 British Pound (GBP/USD), Oct 20, 2026.

See also:

TPR (2026) - How to Trade the Toby Crabel Patterns.

TPR (2026) - Inside Day, What's Next: Continuation, Reversal, or No Trade. 

TPR (2026) - Wide Spread 7, What's Next: Smaller Range, No Follow-Through.  

Larry Williams (1998) - Outside Bar Trading Setups.

Inside Day, What's Next: Continuation, Reversal, or No Trade

An Inside Day (ID) is contraction and has two main interpretations: continuation or reversal. The context determines which is more likely.

► Continuation: When the market is already running, the Inside Day (ID) is a pause within the prevailing move. Toby Crabel takes only the breakout in the trend's direction, placing the stop against the prevailing move. A breakout aligned with the run favors continuation; a break the other way is a skip. This is the more common case, accounting for about six Inside Days (ID) in ten.

► Reversal: When an Inside Day (ID) follows an Outside Day (OD), it marks a pause after expansion and may precede a turn. Larry Williams fades an Outside Day (OD) that closes beyond the prior bar's extreme: a close below the prior low is his buy signal; a close above the prior high is his sell signal. The Inside Day (ID) is then the contraction before a potential reversal, not a reason to chase the Outside Day (OD).

In either case, the signal sets up the next session's trade. The Inside Day (ID) itself is not the entry.

Inside Day, What's Next? Crabel Pattern Statistics across 7 futures markets and 14 FX pairs, from 2020 to date.

 

S&P 500 E-mini Futures (daily bars): Outside Days (OD) and Inside Days (ID).

OD: A bar whose high is above the previous high and whose low is below the previous low, so the session takes out both sides of the prior bar. ID: A bar whose high is below the previous high and whose low is above the previous low, so the session sits inside the prior bar. 

Do Not Wait for an Outside Day

An Outside Day (OD) follows an Inside Day (ID) roughly twice as often as its 9–13% baseline rate, but it remains the minority outcome. In futures, the rate is generally around 18–24%. After an IDnr4—a bar inside the prior bar with the narrowest range of the past four sessions—the probability often rises further.

 

Green cells in the table above — 25% or higher after an IDnr4:

● Dow (YM): 27.5%

● Gold (GC): 27.1%

● Natural Gas (NG): 26.5%

● British Pound (GBP/USD): 25.8%

● Australian Dollar (AUD/USD): 27.0%

● New Zealand Dollar (NZD/USD): 28.3%

● Swedish Krona (USD/SEK): 29.9%

 

Rose cells — 16% or lower after an IDnr4: 

● Euro (EUR/USD): 13.7%

● Yen (USD/JPY): 14.3%

● Forint (USD/HUF): 14.5%

● Rand (USD/ZAR): 13.9%

● Yen crosses

 Mini Dow ($5) (YM), Oct 20, 2026.

The practical distinction is clear: favor the breakout when the IDnr4 signal is stronger, but do not wait for an Outside Day (OD) to engulf the prior range. That happens in only a minority of cases, even in the stronger markets. The breakout—not the Outside Day (OD) itself—is the trade.

 

Prefer an IDnr4 to a plain Inside Day  (ID) when the setup is otherwise valid. If the market is choppy, with no established trend and no preceding Outside Day  (OD) to frame a potential reversal, stand aside. The pattern is yesterday's; the trade is in the next session.

 

 Swedish Krona (USD/SEK), Oct 20, 2026.

 

See also:

TPR (2026) - How to Trade the Toby Crabel Patterns.

TPR (2026) - Outside Day, What's Next: Contraction, Not Continuation. 

TPR (2026) - Wide Spread 7, What's Next: Smaller Range, No Follow-Through.

Larry Williams (2026) - Small Ranges Beget Large Ranges.

S&P 500 vs. Kp & Ap Forecasts | October 19–23, 2026

NOAA's latest 3-Day Kp Forecast, updated twice daily, projects a high Monday–Tuesday, low and reversal Wednesday, and recovery into early Friday.

 

 NOAA's latest 45-Day Ap Forecast, updates daily, however, projects a low for Saturday, October 24.

 

Assumptions and methodology:

TPR (2026) - S&P 500 vs. Geomagnetic Ap Index and Kp Index.  

TPR (2026) - S&P 500 vs. Ap Index: +3-Day Lag and Limits of Multi-Week Forecasting.

 

Seasonal Cycle for October 2026.

Europe: Civil Unrest and International War Converge | Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: You were projecting civil unrest here in 2026 in advance. My brother's store was completely looted and destroyed in France. Macron can make his resolute television appearance, but nobody listened to the people, and they certainly ignored your forecasts, which you have always said were not merely your personal opinion. This appears to be spreading everywhere: to Belgium, Italy, and Germany, as well as Albania. Will this escalate into November? Pierre

» Et pendant ce temps-là... la la la... on joue à la guerre! « 

Lucius Domitius Macronus, Fall 2026 AD.

ANSWER: I wish I had better news. You are correct; 2026 was the major target for widespread civil unrest in Europe. This will not be the end of it. There will be a reprieve, but as I have warned, the migrant issue will put Europe at tremendous risk, for the people they let in have no interest in assimilating. This will perhaps continue into November. This is part of the rising fuel costs, and they continue to support Zelensky, and our computer warns energy is still in a bull market.

 

Yearly Civil Unrest, 2022 to 2033.

Crude can soar to as high as $200 a barrel in 2028, thanks to war and Zelensky. I have warned that the Neocons only look at their objective and are ignorant of everything else around them. They are really screwing the world economy, and much of the protests are also about the cost of living. Protests will not bring down the cost of living until the leaders abandon Zelensky.

Yearly International War, 2022 to 2033.

 

I have tried to warn that this is the first time I saw the computer have both models, Civil Unrest and International War, aligning at the same time. We have a Panic Cycle in civil unrest in 2029. This raises serious concern that the EU may no longer exist and that the rise in this civil unrest will increase the pressure for separatist movements. The politicians have simply refused to listen to the people they are supposed to represent because they see the people as too stupid to visualize what they see for the future.

 » The former head of state is often publicly killed, and typically all their ministers. « 

These forecasts are NOT my personal opinion. This is the computer, all based on the historical record. We probably have the largest such database, separated between domestic and international events. This allows us to create two separate models and do not compare these forecasts as my opinion against someone else's. This is the data.

Reference:
Martin Armstrong (October 18, 2026) - Europe & Civil Unrest On Time.

 

Bismillah, c'est les ténèbres!

Two geniuses on death row. 

See also:

 Martin Armstrong (2024) - The Five Stages of the Revolutionary Cycle.

Richard Smith (2026) - Three Major War Cycles Converging 2027–2032. 

Alexander L. Chizhevsky (1922) - Mass Excitability during Solar Cycle 25 (2019–2030).

Michael Yon (October 19, 2026) - The Beginning of the End for Europe. (video)

How to Trade the Toby Crabel Patterns

Toby Crabel is a short-term futures trader and the author of Day Trading With Short Term Price Patterns and Opening Range Breakout (1989), a now out-of-print book that defined daily range patterns and the opening-range breakout strategy that made his approach influential among short-term traders. He later founded Crabel Capital Management, a systematic trading firm. 

 

The tighter the range, the better the breakout from it.

The table above shows the results of the Crabel Pattern Scanner for ES, NQ, YM, BTC, GC, and CL, run on Tuesday, October 13, at 5:30 p.m. and valid for the next New York trading session on Wednesday, October 14. The E-mini S&P 500 closed with an NR7 and 3BNR pattern, marking the narrowest range in 96 trading days. Of all the instruments displayed, it would have been the best choice for a breakout trade in the next session.

The Tighter the Range, the Better the Breakout From It

In his book, Crabel examined whether relationships among the open, high, low, and close could reveal repeatable, tradable patterns. He presented computer-tested answers to common short-term trading questions across five sections: opening-range breakouts; short-term price patterns; expansion and contraction patterns; combinations of price patterns with expansion and contraction; and openings and closings within different segments of a price bar.

► Contraction occurs when a range stops expanding: a narrow-range (NR) bar, an inside day (ID), or several consecutive bars of either type, with the tightest range at the end of the contraction. 
► Expansion is the breakout from that range, entered at the next open. A wide spread (WS) reading indicates that the breakout has already carried price beyond the prior range.

»  Small Ranges Beget Large Ranges; Large Ranges Beget Small Ranges. «

S&P 500 E-mini Futures (daily bars): Narrow Range 4, 5, and 7 Days (NR4, NR5, NR7), Inside Days (ID).

These are the contraction and expansion patterns defined by Crabel: 

NR (Narrow Range): A price bar whose range is narrower than the previous bar. Its opposite is WS. Next to NR4, NR5, and NR7 it is technically NR2.

NR4 (Narrow Range 4): A price bar whose range is narrower than each of the previous three bars, marking the narrowest range in four bars. Its opposite is WS4. NR, NR5, and NR7 are also closely watched patterns.

NR5 (Narrow Range 5): A price bar whose range is narrower than each of the previous four bars, marking the narrowest range in five bars. Its opposite is WS5. NR, NR4, and NR7 are also closely watched patterns.

NR7 (Narrow Range 7): A price bar whose range is narrower than each of the previous six bars, marking the narrowest range in seven bars. Its opposite is WS7. NR, NR4, and NR5 are also closely watched patterns.

WS (Wide Spread): A price bar whose range is wider than the previous bar. Its opposite is NR. Next to WS4, WS5, and WS7 it is technically WS2.

WS4 (Wide Spread 4): A price bar whose range is wider than each of the previous three bars, marking the widest range in four bars. Its opposite is NR4. WS, WS5, and WS7 are also closely watched patterns.

WS5 (Wide Spread 5): A price bar whose range is wider than each of the previous four bars, marking the widest range in five bars. Its opposite is NR5. WS, WS4, and WS7 are also closely watched patterns.

WS7 (Wide Spread 7): A price bar whose range is wider than each of the previous six bars, marking the widest range in seven bars. Its opposite is NR7. WS, WS4, and WS5 are also closely watched patterns.

ID (Inside Day): A bar whose high is below the previous high and whose low is above the previous low, so the session sits inside the prior bar.

OD (Outside Day): A bar whose high is above the previous high and whose low is below the previous low, so the session takes out both sides of the prior bar.

IDnr4 (Inside Day Narrow Range 4): An inside day that is also an NR4. The bar sits inside the prior bar, and its range is narrower than each of the previous three bars.

2BNR (2 Bar Narrow Range): The two-bar range, higher high minus lower low, is the narrowest two-bar range of the last 20 sessions.

3BNR (3 Bar Narrow Range): The three-bar range, higher high minus lower low, is the narrowest three-bar range of the last 20 sessions.

4BNR (4 Bar Narrow Range): The four-bar range, higher high minus lower low, is the narrowest four-bar range of the last 30 sessions.

8BNR (8 Bar Narrow Range): The eight-bar range, higher high minus lower low, is the narrowest eight-bar range of the last 40 sessions.

Bear Hook: An NR with the open below the previous bar's low and the close above the previous bar's close.

Bull Hook: An NR with the open above the previous bar's high and the close below the previous bar's close.

Stretch: The 10-session average of the smaller open-to-extreme distance, open to high or open to low. It sets the distance for an ORB or ORBP entry and stop.

Wait for NR4, NR5, NR7, ID, IDnr4, and xBNR. At least one of them shows up on 42% of trading days.

The table above shows the Crabel Pattern Occurrence in the E-mini S&P 500, 2020 to Date (absolute count and percent of 1,756 sessions, January 2, 2020 through October 16, 2026): Each bar is that count, scaled to the largest. A longer NR, WS, or xBNR is not also counted as the shorter pattern it contains.
● The wide side, including 250 (14.2%) WS7 sessions, is an expansion that has already printed. Those days are stood aside.
● A day that is only narrower than yesterday (NR) is about half the sample, so that wait barely selects. The contractions worth taking are the deeper ones. 
● NR7 occurred 284 times (16.2%), one session in six, and that is the narrow day Crabel tested: a two-sided opening-range breakout at the next open. 
● An inside day (ID) occurred 201 times (11.4%). 
● IDnr4, an inside day that is also an NR4, occurred 120 times (6.8%), about eighteen a year, and that was the combination Crabel preferred. 
● Each of 2BNR through 8BNR landed on about 4 percent of sessions, 65 (3.7%) to 82 (4.7%) times. Those longer rests also take a two-sided breakout, and they can fall on the same day as an NR7 or an IDnr4, so the counts are not extra trades. 
● NR4, NR5, NR7, ID, IDnr4, and xBNR: At least one of them shows up on 42% of trading days.

 Crabel Pattern Occurrence Stats for ES, NQ, YM, BTC, GC, CL, and NG, 2020 to date. 

 Crabel Pattern Occurrence Stats for FX Majors, 2020 to date.

► The pattern forms yesterday; the trade is taken in the next session. 

ORB (Opening Range Breakout): A trade at a preset distance (Stretch) off the opening range. The first side to trade is the position.

ORBP (Opening Range Breakout Preference): The same trade, taken in one chosen direction only.

Stretch is the entry distance, not a setup. The opening range is the first 30 seconds (In the glossary of Crabel's 1990 book, the Opening Range is the first thirty seconds of trade each day. The buy and sell stops sit one Stretch beyond that high and that low. The first hour is a different measure. Crabel calls that the Pioneer Range, and for stock indexes it runs from the open to 1:30. That is not the range the ORB stops are measured from.) A buy stop goes one Stretch above that high and a sell stop one Stretch below that low. On an ORB the first stop filled is the trade and the other stop is the protective stop. On an ORBP only the preferred side is working; if price trades Stretch the other way first, cancel, and place the protective stop only after the fill. Later tests in the book often used a fixed distance off the open and flattened on that day's close so every test shared one number. The operating rule is Stretch off the opening range.

NR, NR4, NR5, and NR7 do not pick a side. Take a two-sided ORB the next day. NR7 is the case he tested bar by bar: entry off the open, out on the close, and those trades beat an ORB taken on any day. ID is the same two-sided ORB, unless the market is already running, in which case drop the against-trend stop and take ORBP with the run. IDnr4 is the preferred case. It beat ID alone, NR4 alone, and an ORB on any day, and it is best when it ends a run of closes already pointing one way. 2BNR, 3BNR, 4BNR, and 8BNR are the same idea over a longer rest. Crabel defines all four. The longer the congestion, the more it is a springboard. He did not publish the same tick tests for these as for NR4 and NR7.

Hooks pick the side, so use ORBP. After a Bear Hook, sell only. Do not buy it. The exception is a gap up that holds through mid-session. After a Bull Hook, prefer the buy, and treat it as the weaker of the two. It is better if the next open is below the hook close; once that close is traded, upside continuation is the expectation. A fast move against the bias means stand aside.

WS, WS4, WS5, and WS7 are the expansion the contraction was waiting for, not a fresh setup. WS7 is momentum. An OD is the same class: both sides of the prior bar were already taken out. A True in those rows means the breakout day already happened.

► There is no fixed price target. The tested edge is the close of the entry day. A two- or three-day hold is allowed only if that session is already substantially profitable. 

► The ideal fill is in the first ten minutes, with the open as one extreme of that thrust. A large move in the first fifteen minutes is an Early Entry, and continuation is the normal case. 

► Move the stop to flat within an hour; on the S&P he used five to ten minutes. If price does not leave the entry, the trade is suspect. Scale out with more than one contract and trail the rest. 

► A fill late in the day is the worst entry; cut the size as the session ages, or skip it. If you miss the break, one or two entries on a 3/8 to 1/2 retracement of the range already made are allowed, with the stop beyond the 5/8 level. A third retracement is not. 

► Whichever side of Stretch trades first is the bias for the next two or three hours, even with no position. Do not fade that first move unless it is against the intermediate trend and the pattern agrees with the trend. 

 

Crabel Pattern Scanner results for October 14, 5:30 p.m. ET: Crude Oil closed with an NR7 pattern, marking the narrowest range in 32 trading days. Of all the instruments displayed, it would have been the best choice for a breakout trade in the next session.

Trading the Opening Range Breakout: Strictly Following Crabel (1989)

The Opening Range Breakout is a day trade taken the session after a contraction. Yesterday's bar serves as the setup. For example, the October 14, 2026, end-of-day Crude Oil daily bar exhibited an NR7 pattern, with the narrowest range in 32 trading days, as shown in the Crabel Pattern Scanner table above. The trade is entered at the next session’s open on October 15 at 9:00 a.m. ET. The system is the order. The strategy is which days to use it, and how to manage it once it is on.

 

 

► The Day Before: An ORB after a narrow day beat an ORB taken on any day. The session before should be a contraction: NR, NR4, NR5, NR7, an inside day, or a longer rest such as 2BNR through 8BNR. Those do not pick a side, so the next session is a two-sided ORB.

IDnr4 is the case Crabel liked best. It beat an inside day alone, an NR4 alone, and an ORB on any day. An inside day in a market that is already running is not two-sided. Drop the stop against the run and take ORBP with it. A gap in the direction of that run is continuation. If the break fires the other way, do not take it.

Hooks pick the side. After a Bear Hook, sell only. The exception is a gap up that holds through mid-session. A Bull Hook prefers the buy and is the weaker of the two. It is better if the next open is below the hook close. A fast move against the hook means stand aside.

A wide day is not a new setup. WS and an outside day mean the expansion already happened. An upthrust, a spring, or a sharp reversal is followed with ORBP in the direction of the reversal for at least two days, if that direction agrees with the intermediate trend.

► Before the Open: Stretch is fixed before the open. For each of the last ten sessions, take the smaller distance from that day’s open to its high or to its low. The average of those ten numbers is Stretch.

Choose the order from the pattern. ORB is two-sided. ORBP (Opening Range Breakout Preference) is one side only, used when the pattern or a running market has already named the direction.

► The Open: The opening range is the first thirty seconds. A buy stop goes one Stretch above that high. A sell stop goes one Stretch below that low.

On an ORB both stops are working. The first one filled is the position. The other becomes the protective stop. 

On an ORBP only the preferred side is working. The protective stop is placed after the fill. If price trades one Stretch the other way first, cancel. The preference is gone.

October 16, 2026 morning's ES session, the day after an NR, and the order of the trade. The shaded column is the 9:30 minute, standing in for the first 30 seconds. Stretch was 11.93. The sell stop at 7,783.25 filled at 9:40. The buy stop at 7,815.25 was never traded, so it is the protective stop.

October 15, 2026 daily Gold bar was an NR, so the morning of October 16, 2026 was a two-sided opening-range breakout. The day session opens at 8:20 a.m. ET. Stretch was 19.01. The 8:20 minute ran 4,196.1 to 4,198.6. One Stretch beyond that is a sell stop at 4,177.1 and a buy stop at 4,217.6. The sell filled at 9:21, so the buy became the protective stop. That stop was traded at 10:23. Unlike the ES short, this one was stopped out.

Note: The ES and Gold charts above are illustrative examples demonstrating the principles of the Opening Range and the Stretch. NR days are the weakest among narrow-range days, so prioritize NR4, NR5, NR7, ID, IDnr4, xBNR, or any combination of these higher-grade setups when trading Opening Range Breakouts.

Wednesday, October 14, was NR7 on the CL future, the narrowest range in 32 sessions. Thursday, October 15, was a two-sided breakout off the 9:00 a.m. open. Stretch was 0.92. The 9:00 minute ran 93.91–94.04. The buy at 94.96 filled at 10:08. The sell at 92.99 was not traded. The 2:30 close was 96.44, a profit of $1,480 on one CL contract (risk/reward 0.75 to 1). Candles are five minutes. The range lines are that one 9:00 minute.

► After the Fill: The best fill is in the first ten minutes, with the open as one extreme of that thrust. On the S&P he expected the getaway in five to ten minutes. Move the stop to flat within an hour, sooner in a market that trends easily. If price does not leave the entry, the trade is suspect. Cut the size as the session ages. A fill near the close is the worst entry.

There is no fixed price target. The tested exit is the close of the entry day. A two- or three-day hold is allowed only if that session is already substantially profitable. Otherwise it is a day trade. With more than one contract, take some off and trail the rest.

In the book's tests Crabel often dropped Stretch and used one fixed distance off the open, then flattened on the close, so every pattern could be compared with the same number. The rule for trading it is still Stretch off the opening range.

► If the Break is Missed: If the early break is missed, one or two entries are allowed on a retracement of three-eighths to one-half of the range already made, with the stop beyond the five-eighths level. A third retracement is not.

 

► If no Trade is Taken: The first side of Stretch to trade is the bias for the next two or three hours, even with no position. Do not fade that first move unless it is against the intermediate trend and the pattern agrees with the trend.

 

Lesson Learned 

Small Ranges Beget Large Ranges; Large Ranges Beget Small Ranges is the axiom of market behavior—the eternal rhythm of contraction and expansion. Crabel's original Stretch is simply too tight for today's more volatile intraday markets, leading to premature entries, stop-outs, and unacceptable risk-reward ratios. 

In near-24-hour, algorithm-driven globalized markets, when exactly is the Open, and when to enter a trade—in the Asian, London, or New York session? Crabel himself, Michael Huddleston, Carlo Zarattini, Andrew Aziz, and others, have addressed this issue, developing profitable strategies to determine why, when, and where to enter and exit a position. 

» After more than 50 years of trading, one thing is clear: all ideas are subject to revision. Flexibility is required. I do not discard the original intellectual structures when changes are necessary. Instead, the framework evolves and, ideally, strengthens as markets change.

In my 1989 book, the entry logic for moves off the open was more complicated than necessary. A simpler approach is to use a percentage of an n-day average range. The exact percentage and lookback period will vary by market and should be explored. Different markets require different thresholds. There are now many valid reference points beyond the open. In some cases, they may be more relevant. Regional closes, or moves of a certain magnitude from any price level, can serve as useful anchors. Observation should guide testing. «

Toby Crabel: Modifications to the ORB Framework, 2026.

Crabel (1989/90) vs. Concretum (2026): Thirty seconds needs Stretch beyond it. Five minutes already

contains that noise. Either way, a break of the open taken every day does not pay for itself. 

 

 Research on the opening range breakout: what's worked, 

what's stopped working, and what the data says now.

See also:

TPR (2026) - Crabel Pattern Scanner.

TPR (2026) - Wide Spread 7, What's Next: Smaller Range, No Follow-Through. 

TPR (2026) - Inside Day, What's Next: Continuation, Reversal, or No Trade.  

TPR (2026) - Outside Day, What's Next: Contraction, Not Continuation.

 Toby Crabel (1990) - The Principle of Contraction/Expansion.

Larry Williams (2025) - How Markets Move: The Natural Cycle of Range Change.

Concretum Research (2026) - Can Short-Term Trading Scale to $5B? Toby Crabel Proves It Can.

Concretum Research (2026) - Improving the Opening Range Breakout Strategy on SPY.

Carlo Zarattini and Andrew Aziz (2025) - Can Day Trading Really Be Profitable?

Carlo Zarattini, Andrea Barbon, and Andrew Aziz (2024) - A Profitable Day Trading Strategy for the US Equity Market.

Michael J. Huddleston and Jevaunie Daye (2024) - ICT Time Macros and Quarterly Theory. 

Richie Naso (2025) - How Algorithms Impact Market Direction: 80% of Breakouts Fail.

JadeCap (2026) - All Five ICT Entry Models Explained. 

 

All Five ICT Entry Models Explained.