NQ 1-Minute Range by Time of Day
How much does the E-mini Nasdaq-100 actually move on the 1-minute chart at different times of day? The table below is measured from 3,418 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 | 19.19 pts | |
| 1:00 AM ET | 17.70 pts | |
| 2:00 AM ET | 20.65 pts | |
| 3:00 AM ET | 20.64 pts | |
| 4:00 AM ET | 18.13 pts | |
| 5:00 AM ET | 22.41 pts | |
| 6:00 AM ET | 12.50 pts | |
| 7:00 AM ET | 12.84 pts | |
| 8:00 AM ET | 24.74 pts | |
| 9:00 AM ET | 28.11 pts | |
| 10:00 AM ET | 25.82 pts | |
| 11:00 AM ET | 22.42 pts | |
| 12:00 PM ET | 16.61 pts | |
| 1:00 PM ET | 12.39 pts | |
| 2:00 PM ET | 11.68 pts | |
| 3:00 PM ET | 9.63 pts | |
| 4:00 PM ET | 16.27 pts | |
| 5:00 PM ET | 10.42 pts | |
| 6:00 PM ET | 5.02 pts | |
| 7:00 PM ET | 14.79 pts | |
| 8:00 PM ET | 13.50 pts | |
| 9:00 PM ET | 15.35 pts | |
| 10:00 PM ET | 11.69 pts | |
| 11:00 PM ET | 13.25 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 6:00 PM and 3:00 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 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.