ES (S&P 500 E-mini Futures) 2 Minute Range by Time of Day
How much does the E-mini S&P 500 actually move on the 2 minute chart at different times of day? The table below is measured from 1,531 recorded 2 minute bars across 8 recent sessions: for each hour of the day, the average distance between a bar's high and its low.
| Hour | Avg 2 minute range | |
|---|---|---|
| 12:00 AM ET | 0.98 pts | |
| 1:00 AM ET | 1.69 pts | |
| 2:00 AM ET | 1.80 pts | |
| 3:00 AM ET | 2.33 pts | |
| 4:00 AM ET | 2.25 pts | |
| 5:00 AM ET | 1.85 pts | |
| 6:00 AM ET | 1.51 pts | |
| 7:00 AM ET | 2.01 pts | |
| 8:00 AM ET | 4.55 pts | |
| 9:00 AM ET | 5.96 pts | |
| 10:00 AM ET | 4.82 pts | |
| 11:00 AM ET | 2.88 pts | |
| 12:00 PM ET | 2.62 pts | |
| 1:00 PM ET | 1.96 pts | |
| 2:00 PM ET | 1.97 pts | |
| 3:00 PM ET | 1.84 pts | |
| 4:00 PM ET | 1.32 pts | |
| 7:00 PM ET | 1.19 pts | |
| 8:00 PM ET | 1.49 pts | |
| 9:00 PM ET | 1.70 pts | |
| 10:00 PM ET | 1.02 pts | |
| 11:00 PM ET | 0.95 pts |
How to read this
The most active hours in this window were 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 8:00 AM ET, and the quietest were 11:00 PM and 12:00 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 6× the ground of the quietest.
These figures shift with volatility regimes — they describe the recorded window above, not a guarantee of the next session.