MNQ (Micro Nasdaq 100 Futures) 1 Minute Range by Time of Day
How much does the Micro E-mini Nasdaq 100 actually move on the 1 minute chart at different times of day? The table below is measured from 6,756 recorded 1 minute bars across 17 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 | 14.69 pts | |
| 2:00 AM ET | 18.48 pts | |
| 3:00 AM ET | 15.26 pts | |
| 4:00 AM ET | 14.05 pts | |
| 5:00 AM ET | 10.27 pts | |
| 6:00 AM ET | 9.32 pts | |
| 7:00 AM ET | 11.16 pts | |
| 8:00 AM ET | 12.88 pts | |
| 9:00 AM ET | 20.85 pts | |
| 10:00 AM ET | 19.72 pts | |
| 11:00 AM ET | 14.63 pts | |
| 12:00 PM ET | 14.54 pts | |
| 1:00 PM ET | 13.77 pts | |
| 2:00 PM ET | 13.88 pts | |
| 3:00 PM ET | 12.77 pts | |
| 4:00 PM ET | 9.20 pts | |
| 6:00 PM ET | 5.85 pts | |
| 7:00 PM ET | 11.36 pts | |
| 8:00 PM ET | 15.83 pts | |
| 9:00 PM ET | 17.60 pts | |
| 10:00 PM ET | 18.53 pts | |
| 11:00 PM ET | 16.58 pts |
How to read this
The most active hours in this window were 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 10:00 PM ET, and the quietest were 6:00 PM 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.