ES Futures Trading Hours and Daily Break

ES futures trading hours dey run from Sunday 5:00 p.m. Central time reach Friday 4:00 p.m. Central time. This mean say market dey trade for 23 hours every day and 115 hours for the week.

One break dey interrupt each weekday: the 60-minute maintenance halt wey start for 4:00 p.m. CT, wey be 5:00 p.m. ET for New York time. Every clock time wey follow dey show Chicago time plus the Eastern equivalent, because CME dey publish the Globex calendar for CT.

Wetin be ES futures trading hours for CME Globex?

The E-mini S&P 500 futures contract, wey get root ES, dey trade for CME Globex from Sunday evening reach Friday afternoon. The symbol wey you go actually enter get month and year code after that root. how to read futures symbol explain the matter step by step. The weekly schedule be like this:

• Sunday, 5:00 p.m. CT (6:00 p.m. ET): trading week dey open. That evening session don already carry Monday trade date.
• Monday to Thursday, 4:00 p.m. CT (5:00 p.m. ET): trading dey stop for daily maintenance window.
• Monday to Thursday, 5:00 p.m. CT (6:00 p.m. ET): next trade date dey open and trading continue overnight.
• Friday, 4:00 p.m. CT (5:00 p.m. ET): week dey end. No Saturday session dey, and nothing dey happen on Sunday until evening reopen.

One full ES trading day dey run from 5:00 p.m. CT reach 4:00 p.m. CT the next afternoon. Na 23 hours of trading, with the missing hour dey inside maintenance window between trade dates. The Micro E-mini get the same hours, but contract size na one tenth. micro E-mini vs E-mini futures cover the difference.

Why ES hours dey look like say e one hour off from New York?

CME Group na Chicago exchange, and e dey publish every product hours for Central Time. Eastern Time dey one hour ahead, and both time zones dey change to daylight saving on the same US dates. So, the gap dey remain one hour throughout the year. To convert am, na addition you always use. New York reader wey see say “S&P futures open at 5” and wait till 5:00 p.m. local time don already miss the first hour of the week. For the equity side of this same clock, wey we write in ET throughout, see our stock market hours guide.

Why pages ụfọdụ dey list second halt for 3:15 p.m. CT?

Between November 2012 and June 2021, equity index futures get second daily pause. Trading dey stop for 3:15 p.m. CT (4:15 p.m. ET), then e restart 15 minutes later for 3:30 p.m. CT. This one remain from the time wey the same contracts still dey trade for open outcry pits. CME remove the halt on June 28, 2021. Since then, ES dey run continuously through the afternoon until the 4:00 p.m. CT maintenance stop. Broker help pages and older explainers wey dem write before that date still describe two afternoon halts. As of September 2026, na one halt dey. Check CME contract specifications whenever third-party source talk different thing.

Wetin cash session mean for volume and spread?

US cash equity session dey run from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. CT, wey be the familiar 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET. ES quotes dey show through the night, but na the hours wey the underlying 500 stocks open be the hours wey big-size trades dey happen. The panel below dey count every minute of volume for SPY tape, the S&P 500 ETF wey track the same index, then bucket am by Eastern clock hour across the recent sessions. Futures tape no dey plotted here. Wetin you dey look at na cash market, and na around im schedule futures clock dey operate.

WITH hourly AS
(
    SELECT
        formatDateTime(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'), '%H:00') AS et_hour,
        sum(volume)                                                          AS vol,
        countDistinct(toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')))   AS sessions
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'SPY'
      AND window_start >= today() - 120
      AND window_start <  today() - 2
    GROUP BY et_hour
)
SELECT
    et_hour,
    round(vol / (SELECT max(sessions) FROM hourly) / 1e6, 2) AS avg_volume_millions,
    round(100 * vol / (SELECT sum(vol) FROM hourly), 2)      AS share_pct
FROM hourly
ORDER BY et_hour

The panel cover 16 clock hours. For 04:00 ET, the earliest hour wey get prints for the tape, average session dey trade 0.12 million shares, wey be 0.25% of the day total. Enter middle of cash session, and 13:00 ET hour carry 3.62 million shares, or 7.78% of the day. By the last hour for the tape, 19:00 ET, the figure don drop back to 0.06 million. The same pattern dey control extended equity session, wey after-hours and premarket trading explain in detail.

Thin volume dey show for the quote too. The next panel sample the first minute of every hour on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, then calculate the average gap between best bid and best offer in cents.

SELECT
    formatDateTime(toTimeZone(sip_timestamp, 'America/New_York'), '%H:00') AS et_hour,
    round(avg(toFloat64(ask_price) - toFloat64(bid_price)) * 100, 2)       AS avg_spread_cents,
    count()                                                                AS quote_count
FROM global_markets.cache_stocks_quotes
WHERE ticker = 'SPY'
  AND sip_timestamp >= toDateTime('2026-09-16 08:00:00', 'UTC')
  AND sip_timestamp <  toDateTime('2026-09-17 01:00:00', 'UTC')
  AND toMinute(toTimeZone(sip_timestamp, 'America/New_York')) = 0
  AND bid_price > 0
  AND ask_price > bid_price
GROUP BY et_hour
ORDER BY et_hour

For 04:00 ET, average quoted spread measure 5.91 cents. For 13:00 ET, when cash market don open, e measure 1.97 cents across 3439 quote updates inside that one minute. Quotes tight inside cash window and wider outside am: na this be the practical meaning of “nearly 24 hours.” The contract dey open the whole time, but the depth wey dey behind am no dey constant.

The last hour: 3:00 p.m. CT to 4:00 p.m. CT

The cash close for 3:00 p.m. CT (4:00 p.m. ET) na the time wey the 500 underlying stocks stop regular-hours trading. CME dey set daily settlement price for ES from volume-weighted average price of trades for the final 30 seconds before then, from 2:59:30 to 3:00:00 p.m. CT. This window dey align with equity close. ES itself still dey trade for another full hour, until the 4:00 p.m. CT maintenance halt. Those 60 minutes na futures trading against cash market wey don close. Futures and their options still dey move, while the stocks wey define the index remain quiet. To see how the two index venues differ when you dey trade options on them, see SPX options vs ES futures options.

The closing minute of the cash session na where this handoff dey show clearly. The panel below dey average SPY volume minute by minute for the final half hour of regular trading.

SELECT
    formatDateTime(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'), '%H:%i') AS et_time,
    round(sum(volume)
          / countDistinct(toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')))
          / 1e6, 2)                                                       AS avg_volume_millions
FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
WHERE ticker = 'SPY'
  AND window_start >= today() - 120
  AND window_start <  today() - 2
  AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
       + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 930 AND 960
GROUP BY et_time
ORDER BY et_time

Across 31 minutes, the average session dey start the stretch at 15:30 ET with 0.16 million shares for the bar. The last row for the panel, 16:00 ET, na the bar wey carry the closing-bell timestamp itself, after regular trading don stop, and e dey average 0.3 million shares. After that line, the cash tape don finish for the day. ES still dey trade for another hour.

Sunday night and weekend gap

Globex Sunday 5:00 p.m. CT open again, while US stock market no go open until Monday morning. The panel below group every session for cash tape by weekday.

WITH sessions AS
(
    SELECT
        toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS d,
        sum(volume)                                          AS vol,
        min(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))    AS first_bar
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'SPY'
      AND window_start >= today() - 120
      AND window_start <  today() - 2
    GROUP BY d
)
SELECT
    any(formatDateTime(d, '%W'))            AS weekday,
    count()                                 AS session_count,
    round(avg(vol) / 1e6, 1)                AS avg_volume_millions,
    min(formatDateTime(first_bar, '%H:%i')) AS earliest_print_et
FROM sessions
GROUP BY toDayOfWeek(d)
ORDER BY toDayOfWeek(d)

5 rows come back, one for each weekday. Saturday and Sunday no produce any row at all, because cash tape get nothing to print on either day. Monday alone get 16 sessions inside the window, with average of 44.6 million shares, and the earliest bar for the day land at 04:00 ET. Everything wey ES do between Sunday 5:00 p.m. CT and that first stock print happen when US cash equity market never open beside am.

How holidays dey work for ES futures?

CME get im own holiday and early-close calendar, and e no always match the NYSE one. Two rules dey important:

• Full stock market holiday no automatically mean say futures market close for the whole day. For Thanksgiving Day, for example, equity index futures don historically trade shorter morning session for Chicago while stock market remain closed the whole day.
• Each calendar dey publish early closes separately. When NYSE run 1:00 p.m. ET half day, equity index futures early close don usually happen for 12:15 p.m. CT, wey be 1:15 p.m. ET. Na different minute from stock market own.

Neither pattern dey repeat exactly every year, and you no suppose carry any schedule for head. Check exchange calendar for the exact product and exact date before you assume say session go happen.

FAQ

ES futures dey open what time on Sunday?

5:00 p.m. CT, wey be 6:00 p.m. ET. That Sunday evening session don already carry Monday trade date, and e dey run through night enter Monday cash session.

ES futures dey halt how many times for one day?

Once. The daily maintenance break dey run from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT (5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET). Another halt for 3:15 p.m. CT dey exist until June 28, 2021. Any page wey still list am dey describe the schedule before 2021.

Why dem dey quote ES futures hours for Central time?

CME Group headquarters dey Chicago, and e dey publish product hours for CT. Eastern time dey one hour ahead throughout the year, so add one hour to every CT figure to read am for New York time.

ES futures dey trade on stock market holidays?

Sometimes, and dem get their own timetable. Historically, futures calendar don open for part of some days when stock market close completely. Their early closes too dey happen for different minutes from NYSE own. The product-specific exchange calendar na the authority for any particular date.

Cash session still matter if ES dey trade nearly 24 hours?

For liquidity, yes. The panels above measure volume and quoted spread for the cash tape, wey dey concentrate between 9:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. ET. Na those same hours futures market dey carry the deepest quotes.

Every panel for this page come with the exact SQL underneath. Open one to see how dem count the bars. If you wan group any ticker by Eastern clock hour across any window wey you choose, ask the question for plain English on the Strasmore terminal.