ES 1-Minute Range by Time of Day
How much does the E-mini S&P 500 actually move on the 1-minute chart at different times of day? The table below is measured from 6,847 recorded 1-minute bars across 16 recent sessions: for each hour of the day, the average distance between a bar's high and its low.
| Hour | Avg 1-minute range | |
|---|---|---|
| 12:00 AM ET | 1.69 pts | |
| 1:00 AM ET | 1.37 pts | |
| 2:00 AM ET | 1.74 pts | |
| 3:00 AM ET | 1.55 pts | |
| 4:00 AM ET | 1.55 pts | |
| 5:00 AM ET | 1.46 pts | |
| 6:00 AM ET | 1.16 pts | |
| 7:00 AM ET | 1.39 pts | |
| 8:00 AM ET | 2.03 pts | |
| 9:00 AM ET | 2.97 pts | |
| 10:00 AM ET | 3.30 pts | |
| 11:00 AM ET | 2.74 pts | |
| 12:00 PM ET | 2.50 pts | |
| 1:00 PM ET | 2.13 pts | |
| 2:00 PM ET | 1.78 pts | |
| 3:00 PM ET | 2.32 pts | |
| 4:00 PM ET | 1.47 pts | |
| 5:00 PM ET | 1.61 pts | |
| 6:00 PM ET | 1.03 pts | |
| 7:00 PM ET | 1.20 pts | |
| 8:00 PM ET | 1.43 pts | |
| 9:00 PM ET | 1.97 pts |
How to read this
The most active hours in this window were 10:00 AM, 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM ET, and the quietest were 6:00 PM and 6:00 AM ET. A wider bar means each interval covers more ground. The takeaway is purely observational: a fixed number of points represents a very different share of typical movement at different hours — in this window, the most active hour covered roughly 3× the ground of the quietest.
These figures shift with volatility regimes — they describe the recorded window above, not a guarantee of the next session.
