Research
Honest futures research for NQ, ES, and GC. Every edge here was tested on 3 years of real 1-minute data with an out-of-sample split and modeled costs — and we publish the setups that failed, not just the ones that worked.
Measure the 10-day average 'stretch' (how far the open sits from the nearest extreme). Place a buy stop that far above the open and a sell stop that far below it. The first side hit takes the trade, the opposite level is the stop, and the position is held to the close.
⚠ SIZING — the number nobody publishes: A positive edge can still fail a prop evaluation. At $250 risk/trade the 14.5R drawdown is ≈$3,625 — it BREACHES a $2,000 trailing-drawdown account. Tradeable size is ≈$100–125/trade, or a filtered subset that trades less often. And that is CLOSED-trade drawdown: §59d measured intraday marking adding ~23% on the AND-gate, so a trailing limit that ratchets on intraday highs makes this worse, never better.
BETA — one untuned parameterization from a 1990 book, positive every year on NQ and robust to 4× our normal slippage, but it has not yet been proven forward in the open. We publish it as a lead, not a validated edge, and the forward ledger below decides which it becomes. 3-year Databento 1-min backtest · executable fills · net of slippage (2023–2026).
Browse the strategy vault — our 104 with their out-of-sample and per-year columns, plus 5,810 imported from a public catalogue and labelled UNTESTED →
The pattern: on index futures the sweep is a continuation signal, not a reversal — every "fade the sweep" setup loses out-of-sample, and continuation only pays at major once-a-day levels. When our OWN numbers fail a re-test, we withdraw them publicly (⚠) — same standard we apply to everyone else. The one live lead (below) is in an open forward test. See the gap-fill breakdown →
Combine four factors knowable by 09:45 — overnight direction, gap, prior-day body, ORB15. When all four agree (~1 in 3 days), the day closed that way ~68% of the time and the continuation trade made +1.29R (NQ). Below that, direction is a coin-flip — so the read is STAND DOWN. Honest caveat: this is preliminary — a small out-of-sample sample (n≈60, ±~12pp), a conviction/stand-down filter, not yet a graduated edge. A directional bias, not a win rate. The Session Bias Map indicator →
Our single out-of-sample-validated lead — NQ prior-day-H/L break that diverges from ES, confirmed by a NQ/ES/YM initial-balance triple — traded live, in the open, since 2026-06-16. Backtest: +0.35R/trade, 58% win, PF 2.13, max-DD 5.2R, n=123, ~41 signals/yr. Confirmation bar: ~20–30 forward trades holding ≥ +0.30R before we call it validated. If it fades here, we publish that too.
THE BASELINE ABOVE WAS CORRECTED DOWNWARD ON 2026-09-11, AND THIS LEDGER HAS A SEAM IN IT. We found a lookahead in our own code: the check for “has ES already broken its level?” was reading the ES bar covering the entry minute — a bar that has not finished forming at the moment we decide to trade. The backtest we published, +0.62R/trade at 65% win over 43 trades, was not achievable in real time. Restricted to information a trader actually has, the same rule is +0.35R at 58% win over 123 trades, with max drawdown 5.2R instead of 2.4R — a weaker edge that fires three times as often. The defect was also in the live detector, so any rows dated before 2026-09-11 were logged under the stricter, unimplementable gate and this tracker was missing roughly two thirds of its signals. Rows from here on use the corrected rule. We are leaving the old rows visible and labelled rather than deleting them — but the counter restarts at zero from 2026-09-11, because a number measured on a rule nobody could trade is not evidence about the rule we now run. The confirmation bar stays where it was set: ≥ +0.30R. It was chosen against a +0.62R backtest and is now 86% of the corrected +0.35R estimate, so the honest prior on clearing it is close to a coin flip. We are publishing that prior instead of moving the bar.
GC (traded as MGC, $10/pt) · 5-minute · 08:20–13:30 ET (14:20–19:30 SAST). Reference: Overnight range 18:00 → 08:20 ET. 1. First bar to trade beyond the overnight range AND close back inside on the same bar, closing against the trade direction. 2. A later bar closes beyond that rejection bar's far extreme (within 12 bars). 3. LIMIT at the rejection bar's midpoint, working from the confirmation bar (no fill within 12 bars = no trade). Low swept → LONG · high swept → SHORT. 30-point target, 30-point stop, Flat at 13:30 ET.
Why this is a candidate, not an edge. We examined roughly 350 combinations of level, entry model, target and stop to find it — with that many cells a good-looking backtest is expected from noise alone, so the backtest is not the evidence; this ledger is. Two things we corrected while building it, both published: (1)we first described this as a “breaker block”, but our code never implemented one — every qualifying day was a same-bar sweep-and-reclaim, so it is named for what it is; (2) an earlier version entered at the reclaim close, which used the confirmation to select the day and then entered before it — lookahead. That version is void. Entering at the confirmation bar at market loses (−$26/trade); only the limit retest survives. Expect ~28 trades a year: roughly $532 a year on a single MGC contract. Full record →
| Date | Dir | O/N range | Entry | Stop | Target | Result | $ MGC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-03 | SHORT | 3904.1 – 3974.5 | 3969.6 | 3999.6 | 3939.6 | NO_FILL | — |
| 2026-10-27 | SHORT | 4001.6 – 4038.9 | 4038.1 | 4068.1 | 4008.1 | STOP | $-306 |
| 2026-10-23 | SHORT | 4000.9 – 4047.4 | 4044.2 | 4074.2 | 4014.2 | TARGET | +$294 |
| 2026-10-19 | LONG | 4178.4 – 4211.2 | 4179.4 | 4149.4 | 4209.4 | TIME | $-199 |
| 2026-10-05 | LONG | 4152.3 – 4198.9 | 4157.8 | 4127.8 | 4187.8 | TIME | $-10 |
| 2026-09-11 | LONG | 4341.4 – 4402.0 | 4366.3 | 4336.3 | 4396.3 | NO_FILL | — |
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DAILY COVERAGE
- Daily gap fill probability
- Regime classification
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- Opening range expectation
- Session replay breakdowns
- Macro event setups
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The daily pre-open briefing publishes via the newsletter; the searchable archive lands here once the Beehiiv integration is wired. Until then, the live read is on the NQ dashboard, and the validated research above is the real, out-of-sample work. We'd rather show you nothing than invent sample articles.
Every stat above is computed from real historical price data with an out-of-sample split — and we publish the setups that fail, not just the ones that work. Market context, not trading advice.