NQ (Nasdaq 100 E-mini Futures) 5 Minute Range by Time of Day
How much does the E-mini Nasdaq 100 actually move on the 5 minute chart at different times of day? The table below is measured from 1,746 recorded 5 minute bars across 11 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 | 16.94 pts | |
| 1:00 AM ET | 16.99 pts | |
| 2:00 AM ET | 21.51 pts | |
| 3:00 AM ET | 25.23 pts | |
| 4:00 AM ET | 21.06 pts | |
| 5:00 AM ET | 18.25 pts | |
| 6:00 AM ET | 19.96 pts | |
| 7:00 AM ET | 27.69 pts | |
| 8:00 AM ET | 35.46 pts | |
| 9:00 AM ET | 38.97 pts | |
| 10:00 AM ET | 35.35 pts | |
| 11:00 AM ET | 24.67 pts | |
| 12:00 PM ET | 20.92 pts | |
| 1:00 PM ET | 16.66 pts | |
| 2:00 PM ET | 16.62 pts | |
| 3:00 PM ET | 13.44 pts | |
| 5:00 PM ET | 16.16 pts | |
| 6:00 PM ET | 13.71 pts | |
| 7:00 PM ET | 18.36 pts | |
| 8:00 PM ET | 19.97 pts | |
| 9:00 PM ET | 16.60 pts | |
| 10:00 PM ET | 15.40 pts | |
| 11:00 PM ET | 14.99 pts |
How to read this
The most active hours in this window were 9:00 AM, 8:00 AM, 10:00 AM ET, and the quietest were 3:00 PM and 6:00 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 3× the ground of the quietest.
These figures shift with volatility regimes — they describe the recorded window above, not a guarantee of the next session.
