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 2,405 recorded 5-minute bars across 12 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 | 19.22 pts | |
| 1:00 AM ET | 19.36 pts | |
| 2:00 AM ET | 22.53 pts | |
| 3:00 AM ET | 27.55 pts | |
| 4:00 AM ET | 20.30 pts | |
| 5:00 AM ET | 17.63 pts | |
| 6:00 AM ET | 22.22 pts | |
| 7:00 AM ET | 23.57 pts | |
| 8:00 AM ET | 43.66 pts | |
| 9:00 AM ET | 47.33 pts | |
| 10:00 AM ET | 34.55 pts | |
| 11:00 AM ET | 28.25 pts | |
| 12:00 PM ET | 22.88 pts | |
| 1:00 PM ET | 22.04 pts | |
| 2:00 PM ET | 20.73 pts | |
| 3:00 PM ET | 18.43 pts | |
| 5:00 PM ET | 16.93 pts | |
| 6:00 PM ET | 12.22 pts | |
| 7:00 PM ET | 23.96 pts | |
| 8:00 PM ET | 22.04 pts | |
| 9:00 PM ET | 17.81 pts | |
| 10:00 PM ET | 16.40 pts | |
| 11:00 PM ET | 13.88 pts |
The most active hours in this window were 9:00 AM, 8:00 AM, 10:00 AM ET, and the quietest were 6:00 PM and 11:00 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.