Initial Balance Breakout [MES] v3

Initial Balance Breakout [MES] v3 at a glance

Kind of rule	Time of day (session and opening range)
Buys or sells	It can buy, and it can bet on falling prices.
Built on	VWAP
Where it was published	TradingView, by its author, as a Pine Script strategy
Tested on	67 cells: 15 coins, October 2021 to June 2026, no fee
Cells that placed a trade	30 of 67
Middle result before fees	−0.0%
Cells above zero	2 of 30
Middle drawdown before fees	0.0%
Page updated	2026-11-08

Initial Balance Breakout [MES] v3 backtest results, every cell

Every cell is in the picture, not only the strongest. To the right of the black line is above zero. The orange line, when you see one, is the middle.

How Initial Balance Breakout [MES] v3 works

Rules in this group usually work like this. It only acts during set hours, such as the London or New York morning. Crypto never closes, so those hours are a choice, not a fact of the market. The question is whether those hours behave the same way on more than one coin. The next paragraph is this particular rule, which can be narrower than the group.

It can buy, and it can bet on falling prices. It acts only when several checks agree at once. It leans on VWAP; those names are explained on their own pages, further down. The exact line is in the list below, in the author's names, and you can skip that list. It gets out when a position is open.

Each trade uses a fixed size of 1. It holds one trade at a time.

The exact condition, from the code

Same rule, translated from the code, in the author's names. You can skip this list if the paragraph above was enough.

• Enters long when ib locked and ib tradeable and not (long taken) and no position is open and (not (VWAP Trend Filter (on)) or the close is above VWAP) and the close crosses above undefined.
• Enters short when ib locked and ib tradeable and not (short taken) and no position is open and (not (VWAP Trend Filter (on)) or the close is below VWAP) and the close crosses below undefined.
• On entry, places a stop at ((avg(undefined) when ib locked, else undefined) when Stop Loss at (Opposite IB) equals 'IB Midpoint', else undefined), a target at ((undefined + (Target 2 (× IB range) (1.5) × ((undefined − undefined) when ib locked, else undefined))) when ib locked, else undefined).
• On entry, places a stop at ((avg(undefined) when ib locked, else undefined) when Stop Loss at (Opposite IB) equals 'IB Midpoint', else undefined), a target at ((undefined − (Target 2 (× IB range) (1.5) × ((undefined − undefined) when ib locked, else undefined))) when ib locked, else undefined).
• Closes the position when a position is open.

Buys or sells	It can buy, and it can bet on falling prices.
Tools it calculates	VWAP
A second chart speed	No. It uses one chart speed only.
Only at certain hours	Yes. It only acts during set hours.
Adding to a trade	It holds one trade at a time.
How much it trades	Each trade uses a fixed size of 1.
Cost the author assumed	The author assumed a trading cost of 2.25 per contract.

Default settings

The test used the defaults in the middle column. Nothing was turned to help a coin.

Setting	Default	Group
IB Window (60 min)	0930-1030
Trade Window	1030-1430
Target 1 (× IB range)	1
Target 2 (× IB range)	1.5
Stop Loss at	Opposite IB
Min IB Range (pts)	8
Max IB Range (pts)	60
VWAP Trend Filter	on

How the backtest was run

Every strategy was tried the same way, on the settings the author published.

The years are October 2021 to June 2026. The prices are from Bybit, for 13 widely traded coins, mostly on hourly, 4-hour and daily charts, with some faster charts. That was 47,242 tries. The window stored in the files is 2021-09..2026-06.

599 rules produced a finished try. A rule that finished above zero on at least 12 cells, before any fee, was tried again with a fee of 0.12 percent per side. Only buys are counted in that second try. 273 rules got it.

The method, the aggregate results and a downloadable table are on the study page. What the desk does with the results beyond these pages is its own.

Before any fee, it was tried on 67 cells. It placed a trade on 30 of them. 2 of the cells that traded finished above zero (6.7%).

It was not run a second time with a fee. That second pass happens only when at least 12 cells finished above zero before fees. 273 rules got that pass.

Cells tried	67
Cells that placed a trade	30
Finished above zero	2 (6.7% of the cells that traded)
Middle result, before fees	−0.0%
Strongest cell, the top of the range	BTC 15-minute: +0.0%
Weakest cell, the bottom of the range	ETH 4-hour: −0.2%
Middle drawdown, before fees	0.0%

Label: backtest · old prices, zero commission · Oct 2021 – Jun 2026. Hypothetical results; see the risk disclosure.

How to read the result

How to read the number

The median of every cell that traded is the result. No fee has been taken off, so the number is a ceiling. A fee comes off each trade, and this page does not guess that cost, because this rule did not get the second pass where the fee is applied. The weakest and the strongest cells are not a result on their own.

The middle drawdown, on the cells that traded, was 0.0%.

What this does not show

The useful question is whether the same hours work on other coins. Crypto has no closing bell, so the hour is a choice.

Nothing on this page was fit to the cell that finished highest. One coin, one chart speed, or one strong stretch is a single row. It is not the rule. Other years, another exchange, or another fee would be a different measurement.

Questions about Initial Balance Breakout [MES] v3

Words used on this page

Backtest

The rule was tried on old prices. No real money moved.

Cell

One coin on one chart speed. Bitcoin every 4 hours is one cell. Bitcoin once a day is another.

Chart speed

How often a new price bar is drawn. 15m means every 15 minutes, 1h means hourly, 4h means every 4 hours, 1D means once a day.

Fee, per side

A cost taken each time the rule trades. Per side means once on the way in and once on the way out.

Median

Line the cells up from the biggest loss to the biggest gain. The median is the middle one. Half the cells did better and half did worse.

Drawdown

The deepest fall from a high point along the way, as a percent of the account at that high.

Above zero

The account finished with more than it started.

The indicators Initial Balance Breakout [MES] v3 uses

Each has its own page: what it measures, how it is read, where it misleads.

• VWAP: the volume-weighted average price, and why its anchor is the whole question

"Initial Balance Breakout [MES] v3" was published on TradingView by its author, under the author's own license. This page is an independent reading of those rules and of what they did on these old prices. It is not written with the author, and it is not a recommendation. Not every detail survives the translation onto this page, so read the original before you rely on it.