When Does NQ (Nasdaq 100 E mini Futures) Actually Move? Hourly Ranges on 15 minute Charts

Educational reference. Measured from 5,871 recorded 15 minute bars of E mini Nasdaq 100 through October 8, 2026.

10:00 is the busiest hour, averaging 92.62 per bar — 4.4× the quietest hour at 17:00.

The same stop is a different stop at different times of day. This is the median high to low range of a single 15 minute bar of E mini Nasdaq 100, hour by hour, measured from 5,871 recorded bars over the last 90 days.

Hour (ET)	Median range	Bars
00:00	26.12	256
01:00	31.50	256
02:00	35.62	256
03:00	39.00	256
04:00	41.25	256
05:00	33.12	256
06:00	30.62	256
07:00	36.50	256
08:00	45.25	256
09:00	48.50	256
10:00	92.62	256
11:00	65.12	256
12:00	49.50	256
13:00	42.75	253
14:00	36.50	252
15:00	38.00	252
16:00	34.12	252
17:00	21.12	62
18:00	32.25	192
19:00	22.12	256
20:00	40.88	256
21:00	40.00	256
22:00	34.12	256
23:00	29.25	256

The spread across the day

The busiest hour is 10:00, averaging 92.62 per bar. The quietest is 17:00 at 21.12. That is a 4.4× difference across the same instrument, the same timeframe, the same trading day.

A stop sized for 17:00 conditions will be caught routinely at 10:00, and a stop sized for 10:00 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 15 minute bar of E mini Nasdaq 100 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.