When Does NQ Actually Move? Hourly Ranges on 5-minute Charts
Educational reference. Measured from 17,529 recorded 5-minute bars of E-mini Nasdaq-100 through September 16, 2026.
10:00 is the busiest hour, averaging 57.25 per bar — 3.8× 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 5-minute bar of E-mini Nasdaq-100, hour by hour, measured from 17,529 recorded bars over the last 90 days.
| Hour (ET) | Median range | Bars | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | 17.25 | 768 | |
| 01:00 | 20.50 | 768 | |
| 02:00 | 20.25 | 768 | |
| 03:00 | 22.12 | 768 | |
| 04:00 | 23.75 | 768 | |
| 05:00 | 19.25 | 768 | |
| 06:00 | 18.25 | 768 | |
| 07:00 | 22.00 | 768 | |
| 08:00 | 26.00 | 768 | |
| 09:00 | 38.25 | 768 | |
| 10:00 | 57.25 | 769 | |
| 11:00 | 40.50 | 768 | |
| 12:00 | 30.25 | 768 | |
| 13:00 | 26.25 | 735 | |
| 14:00 | 24.75 | 732 | |
| 15:00 | 26.50 | 732 | |
| 16:00 | 16.75 | 732 | |
| 17:00 | 15.00 | 68 | |
| 18:00 | 18.00 | 705 | |
| 19:00 | 17.00 | 768 | |
| 20:00 | 30.00 | 768 | |
| 21:00 | 27.25 | 768 | |
| 22:00 | 21.62 | 768 | |
| 23:00 | 19.00 | 768 |
The spread across the day
The busiest hour is 10:00, averaging 57.25 per bar. The quietest is 17:00 at 15.00. That is a 3.8× 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.
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How this was measured
Every 5-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 forecasts. Nothing on this page is a projection.
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Questions traders ask
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