MES 1-Minute Range by Time of Day
How much does the Micro E-mini S&P 500 actually move on the 1-minute chart at different times of day? The table below is measured from 7,436 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 | 1.84 pts | |
| 1:00 AM ET | 1.68 pts | |
| 2:00 AM ET | 1.75 pts | |
| 3:00 AM ET | 1.61 pts | |
| 4:00 AM ET | 1.54 pts | |
| 5:00 AM ET | 1.35 pts | |
| 6:00 AM ET | 1.18 pts | |
| 7:00 AM ET | 1.50 pts | |
| 8:00 AM ET | 2.15 pts | |
| 9:00 AM ET | 3.02 pts | |
| 10:00 AM ET | 3.43 pts | |
| 11:00 AM ET | 2.82 pts | |
| 12:00 PM ET | 2.69 pts | |
| 1:00 PM ET | 2.21 pts | |
| 2:00 PM ET | 1.92 pts | |
| 3:00 PM ET | 2.10 pts | |
| 4:00 PM ET | 1.49 pts | |
| 6:00 PM ET | 1.14 pts | |
| 7:00 PM ET | 1.35 pts | |
| 8:00 PM ET | 1.57 pts | |
| 9:00 PM ET | 2.12 pts | |
| 10:00 PM ET | 4.10 pts | |
| 11:00 PM ET | 2.07 pts |
How to read this
The most active hours in this window were 10:00 PM, 10:00 AM, 9:00 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 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.