When Does MCL (Micro Crude Oil Futures) Actually Move? Hourly Ranges on 5 minute Charts

Educational reference. Measured from 17,531 recorded 5 minute bars of Micro Crude Oil through October 18, 2026.

09:00 is the busiest hour, averaging 0.2950 per bar — 3.7× the quietest hour at 19:00.

The same stop is a different stop at different times of day. This is the median high to low range of a single 5 minute bar of Micro Crude Oil, hour by hour, measured from 17,531 recorded bars over the last 90 days.

Hour (ET)	Median range	Bars
00:00	0.1000	766
01:00	0.1400	768
02:00	0.1800	768
03:00	0.2200	768
04:00	0.2600	768
05:00	0.2200	768
06:00	0.2000	768
07:00	0.2000	768
08:00	0.2400	768
09:00	0.2950	768
10:00	0.2700	768
11:00	0.2700	768
12:00	0.2200	768
13:00	0.2000	768
14:00	0.2100	758
15:00	0.1300	744
16:00	0.1300	744
17:00	0.1100	62
18:00	0.1000	693
19:00	0.0800	756
20:00	0.1500	756
21:00	0.1800	756
22:00	0.1400	756
23:00	0.1200	756

The spread across the day

The busiest hour is 09:00, averaging 0.2950 per bar. The quietest is 19:00 at 0.0800. That is a 3.7× difference across the same instrument, the same timeframe, the same trading day.

A stop sized for 19:00 conditions will be caught routinely at 09:00, and a stop sized for 09:00 gives away far more than it needs to overnight. The same number of points does not mean the same thing at every hour.

How this was measured

Every 5 minute bar of Micro Crude Oil recorded in the last 90 days was grouped by the hour it opened, in Eastern time. The figure shown is the median of high minus low within each group — the middle bar of that hour, not the average, so a single outlier session cannot distort it. Hours with fewer than 60 recorded bars are omitted rather than shown on thin evidence.

These are recorded market ranges, not predictions. Nothing on this page is a projection.