Opening types

Tuesday 13 October 2026, 09:30 ET (20:30 ICT). NQ opens at 30,619.00, 225 points below the previous session’s low. Two minutes later it trades 30,591.25, under the overnight low. Everything on the screen says “sell”. By 09:35 ET NQ is back above the open, and at 10:00 ET it is 30,792.50. The traders who sold at 09:32 reacted to a probe, not a verdict. This lesson shows you how to read the first hour without guessing at minute five.

Key terms

RTH open (giá mở cửa phiên chính): the first trade at 09:30 ET, the start of the US cash session Definition. M0.04 puts it on the clock.

Opening type (kiểu mở cửa): a name for the shape of the first 30 to 60 minutes of RTH relative to the open Definition, from the classic auction-market literature.

Prior range (biên độ phiên trước): the high and low of the previous RTH session Definition. Prior value (vùng giá trị phiên trước): where about 70% of that session’s volume traded, between VAL (low edge) and VAH (high edge); M2 builds it.

Overnight range (biên độ qua đêm): the high and low NQ traded on Globex between 18:00 ET and the RTH open Definition. Traders write them ONH and ONL.

Initiative (chủ động): buying above value or selling below it, the side that moves price to new prices (M1.03) Definition.

Chart first: four real opens

How it works

The four shapes

The open is the session’s first auction. Traders who held positions overnight meet the traders who only act in RTH, and the first hour usually takes one of four shapes Definition:

• Open drive (mở cửa đẩy mạnh): price leaves the open in one direction and barely looks back, so the open ends up at one extreme of the first hour.
• Open test drive (mở cửa thử rồi đẩy): price first probes a nearby reference, such as the overnight low or the prior value edge, finds no follow-through within a few minutes, then crosses the open and drives the other way.
• Open rejection reverse (mở cửa bị từ chối, đảo chiều): the first move runs further and lasts longer, meets responsive traders, and comes back through the open.
• Open auction (mở cửa đấu giá): price rotates around the open, usually inside the prior range or value, with no side in control.

A test drive and a rejection reverse differ in size and speed: a small, quick probe at a known price versus a real move that fails.

Label at 10:30 ET, with a written rule

Five minutes of NQ is too little to name anything. On 13 October the first two minutes looked like the start of a drive down. We use one written rule, a house rule House rule, applied at 10:30 ET (21:30 ICT in US daylight time, 22:30 ICT in winter):

1. If price traded back through the open after 10:00 ET and the hour stayed inside the prior range, call it an open auction.
2. Otherwise, note the side the hour ended on and measure the first move against that side as a share of the first-hour range (high minus low, 09:30 to 10:30 ET).
3. Under 10%: open drive. Between 10% and 25%, over within about 10 minutes and at a reference you marked before the open: open test drive. Larger or slower: open rejection reverse.

The four days in the figure, through the rule:

• Day (NQ): 4 Nov 2026 — Open: 28,429.75; First-hour range: 564.00; First move against: 24.75 (4%); Label: open drive up.

• Day (NQ): 13 Oct 2026 — Open: 30,619.00; First-hour range: 223.50; First move against: 27.75 (12%), 2 min, at the overnight low; Label: open test drive up.

• Day (NQ): 20 Oct 2026 — Open: 29,594.00; First-hour range: 511.75; First move against: 202.25 (40%), 15 min; Label: open rejection reverse up.

• Day (NQ): 3 Nov 2026 — Open: 28,266.00; First-hour range: 170.00; First move against: crossed the open after 10:00 ET, inside the prior range; Label: open auction.

The thresholds are ours. What matters is that you write them down before you look at the day, so you label the same way every time.

What the label is for

A label says who took the initiative in the first hour. It is context: after a drive, selling against it is counter-initiative until price trades back through the open; after an auction, there is no initiative to follow yet. It is not a forecast of the close.

Myth / hypothesis: “The opening type tells you the day’s direction, the drive is the most reliable open, and traders trapped by a failed opening push fuel the move against them” Lore. A public practitioner study found opening types inconclusive as a forecast of direction on NQ (the box below). Treat these as hypotheses you can log, not rules.

Where the open sits: inside or outside the prior range

A second, simpler question has real numbers behind it: did RTH open inside yesterday’s range or outside it? When the open is outside, the far side of the prior range is a full range away. Our lab counted this on the Nasdaq-100 ETF (QQQ) from 2015 to 2025 MeasuredNasdaq index.

What the data says

Worked example: the test drive of 13 October 2026

Before the open you mark three references: the prior RTH low, 30,844.25; the prior value area low (VAL), 30,865.00; and the overnight low, 30,604.75. RTH opens at 30,619.00, below the prior range, so the far side, the prior high of 31,048.75, is a long way off.

At 09:32 ET (20:32 ICT) NQ prints 30,591.25, 13.50 points under the overnight low, and turns. By 09:35 it trades above the open and never returns. At 10:30 ET the rule gives a 223.50-point first hour (30,591.25 to 30,814.75) and a 12% probe at a marked reference. Label: open test drive, buyers took the initiative.

The label gives you a frame for the rest of the session, written as if-then:

• If NQ holds above the open (30,619.00), buyers keep the initiative, and the next reference above is the prior low and VAL, 30,844.25 to 30,865.00.
• If NQ trades back below the test low (30,591.25), the label was wrong; drop it.

What happened: the rest of the session stayed between 30,635.50 and 30,814.75 and closed at 30,788.75. The frame held, but NQ never reached the prior low. A label tells you who is in control, not how far they go. Real historical prints, for illustration only.

The mirror and the failure

The mirror. Thursday 5 November 2026, 09:30 ET (21:30 ICT): NQ opened at 28,203.25, below the prior RTH low of 28,405.00, ticked up 25 points to 28,228.25, the session high, and fell to 27,226.25 by 10:30 ET and 26,718.00 at 15:58 ET. An open drive down: the pop was about 2% of the first-hour range, and the far side of the prior range, 28,969.00, never traded. Buying against it was counter-initiative all session.

The failure. On 4 November NQ drove up from 28,429.75 to 28,969.00 by 10:15 ET. A trader who bought the obvious drive at 10:00 ET, at 28,816.50, saw NQ fall to 28,474.00 later that session, 342.50 points against the entry; it closed at 28,566.50. The label was right, since the open was never revisited. The trade was wrong: a label says nothing about where the move stops, and by the time a drive is obvious, much of it may be done.

Common mistake: treating a base rate as an edge. “Far side not traded 89% of the time” sounds like a trade, but a placebo that keeps only ordinary daily distances already gives 86.5%. The number tells you how far a typical session travels, not where to enter.

Common mistake: naming the open from the first five-minute candle. On 13 October the first two minutes looked like a drive down. Write your rule, wait for 10:30 ET, then label.

Do it on the platform

If you execute in TopstepX and read the chart in ATAS X, mark the references on the ATAS chart; the labelling happens there, not in the order window (PLAT2.08).

Drill: label five opens

Pick five recent NQ sessions on a 5-minute chart. For each, before you look past 09:30 ET, mark the prior RTH high and low and the overnight high and low. Then:

1. Note whether the open is inside or outside the prior range.
2. At 10:30 ET apply the three-step rule and write the label.
3. Note whether the far side of the prior range traded before 16:00 ET.

Recap

• Four opening types describe the first hour: drive, test drive, rejection reverse, auction. They name who took the initiative; they do not forecast the close.
• Label at 10:30 ET with a written rule; the first five minutes are a probe.
• Opening types as a forecast of direction were tested on NQ by a practitioner study and came out inconclusive.
• Open location is measured on QQQ: outside opens rarely trade the far side and inside opens usually break one side, and most of that is distance, not an edge.

Further reading

• Dalton, J., Jones, E. and Dalton, R., Mind Over Markets (2nd ed., Wiley, 2013), the chapter on the open: where the four opening types come from.
• Order Flow, Measured, a public practitioner study of NQ claims; see OI-01 and OI-02 for open location and opening types.
• Introduction to Auction Market Theory and Market Profile: the open in the auction framework.
• Our lab: on QQQ from 2015 to 2025, the far side of the prior range was not traded on 89.2% of outside opens, against 86.5% for a distance-only placebo.

Prerequisites: M1.03 Initiative vs responsive activity, M1.04 Day types · Next: M1.06 Reading context, which asks what any level or label adds once you compare it with a placebo · Goes deeper: REG4.03 (the full open-location tree with the volatility-matched placebo), PLAT3.05 (overnight inventory and the gap)

Educational content only, not financial advice. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss. Examples use real historical NQ prints for illustration; they are not trade calls.