ES (S&P 500 E-mini Futures) 5 Minute Range by Time of Day
How much does the E-mini S&P 500 actually move on the 5 minute chart at different times of day? The table below is measured from 1,500 recorded 5 minute bars across 10 recent sessions: for each hour of the day, the average distance between a bar's high and its low.
| Hour | Avg 5 minute range | |
|---|---|---|
| 12:00 AM ET | 1.99 pts | |
| 1:00 AM ET | 2.93 pts | |
| 2:00 AM ET | 3.33 pts | |
| 3:00 AM ET | 3.84 pts | |
| 4:00 AM ET | 3.29 pts | |
| 5:00 AM ET | 3.18 pts | |
| 6:00 AM ET | 3.46 pts | |
| 7:00 AM ET | 4.51 pts | |
| 8:00 AM ET | 5.53 pts | |
| 9:00 AM ET | 7.64 pts | |
| 10:00 AM ET | 7.55 pts | |
| 11:00 AM ET | 5.88 pts | |
| 12:00 PM ET | 5.21 pts | |
| 1:00 PM ET | 4.35 pts | |
| 2:00 PM ET | 3.64 pts | |
| 3:00 PM ET | 3.27 pts | |
| 4:00 PM ET | 2.08 pts | |
| 6:00 PM ET | 2.28 pts | |
| 7:00 PM ET | 2.46 pts | |
| 8:00 PM ET | 2.85 pts | |
| 9:00 PM ET | 2.77 pts | |
| 10:00 PM ET | 2.23 pts | |
| 11:00 PM ET | 2.12 pts |
How to read this
The most active hours in this window were 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM ET, and the quietest were 12:00 AM and 4:00 PM 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 4× the ground of the quietest.
These figures shift with volatility regimes — they describe the recorded window above, not a guarantee of the next session.
