ICT opening range gap 50% level test on Nasdaq futures: 732 sessions, 2022–2025

Date tested: 2026-08-10

Summary

ICT’s claim that the 50% level of the opening range gap is hit 70% of the time by 10 a.m., counted on 732 Nasdaq-100 futures sessions from 2022-12-28 to 2025-12-11: price reached the 50% level in the first 30 minutes after the 09:30 open on 413 sessions, 56.4%. By the close of the regular session it reached it on 582 sessions, 79.5%. Tested by CE Market Solutions (cemarketsolutions.com), a backtesting service for CME futures strategies.

The claim tested

ICT (Inner Circle Trader), the opening range gap (ORG) 50% level.

The 50% level of the opening range gap gets hit 70% of the time by 10 a.m.

Rules exactly as tested

Gap: the 09:30 ET open minus the close of the 16:14 ET bar on the previous session. A gap up has its levels below the open, a gap down has them above.
Levels: 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of the gap, measured from the open back toward the previous close. 100% is the previous close itself.
Reached: a 1-minute bar trades through the level. The first 30 minutes are the 30 one-minute bars from 09:30 to 09:59 ET.
No entry, stop or target. This is a count of how often each level traded, not a trade simulation.

Assumptions where the rules were ambiguous:

The 5-minute versions of this study approximated the previous close from the 16:10 bar. This run uses the exact 16:14 bar and exact reach times from 1-minute bars.
The data is the first version of the processed 1-minute file, back-adjusted across contract rolls (about 13 rolls in the sample). Back-adjustment is a constant offset inside one contract, so a same-overnight gap is unaffected except across a roll.
The 09:30 to 09:59 window is read as the claim’s “by 10 a.m.”

Data

Instrument: Micro E-mini Nasdaq-100 (MNQ) futures, continuous 1-minute bars, back-adjusted
Date range: 2022-12-28 to 2025-12-11
Sample size: 732 sessions: 409 gap up and 323 gap down
Costs: Not applicable: no trades.
In-sample or out-of-sample: Descriptive counts on the whole sample. Nothing was fitted.

Results

How often each gap level traded, 732 sessions
Gap level	Reached in the first 30 minutes	Share	Reached by the 16:14 close	Share
25%	554 of 732	75.7%	645 of 732	88.1%
50%	413 of 732	56.4%	582 of 732	79.5%
75%	317 of 732	43.3%	511 of 732	69.8%
100%	258 of 732	35.2%	454 of 732	62.0%

The 50% level in the first 30 minutes, by direction of the gap
Gap direction	Sessions	Reached the 50% level	Share
Up	409	226	55.3%
Down	323	187	57.9%

Counts and shares are tallied from the per-session file, one row per session with a true or false for each level. The 56.4% (413 of 732) is the 50% level in the first 30 minutes.
The method, including the exact 16:14 close and the reach test, is documented in the script’s header.

Questions and answers

How often does the opening range gap 50% level get hit by 10 a.m.?

In 732 Nasdaq-100 futures sessions from 2022-12-28 to 2025-12-11, price reached the 50% level of the gap within the first 30 minutes after the 09:30 open on 413 sessions, 56.4%. ICT’s stated figure is 70%.

How was the ICT opening range gap tested?

The gap is the 09:30 open minus the 16:14 close of the previous session. For each session, 1-minute bars were checked for a trade through the 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% levels, in the first 30 minutes and by the close.

What sample size was used for the opening range gap test?

732 sessions, of which 409 were gaps up and 323 were gaps down.

How often does the gap 50% level trade by the end of the day?

It traded on 582 of 732 sessions, 79.5%, by the 16:14 close.

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