STRASMORE/EXPLORE 2,170 QUERIES

How far SPY trades from its own open and close, by time of day

Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-08-22, from Best Time of Day to Sell a Mutual Fund.

as of series 13×3read in context →
How far SPY trades from its own open and close, by time of day — 13 rows by 3 columns, computed from US exchange, SIP and OPRA data.
et_timeavg_gap_to_close_pctavg_gap_to_open_pct
09:300.4550.135
10:000.410.236
10:300.3720.286
11:000.3310.326
11:300.3090.361
12:000.2770.385
12:300.260.406
13:000.2430.424
13:300.2160.441
14:000.1950.445
14:300.1740.457
15:000.1440.481
15:300.090.493
Rows × columns
13 × 3
Period covered
to
Computed
Completeness
No missing values
Source
US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
Licence
Strasmore terms · free, no signup
Formats
JSON · CSV · the SQL below

What each column holds

Column definitions for How far SPY trades from its own open and close, by time of day, derived from the stored result.
ColumnTypeRangeNotes
et_time date 09:30 to 15:30
avg_gap_to_close_pct number 0.09 to 0.455 percent
avg_gap_to_open_pct number 0.135 to 0.493 percent

Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.

the exact SQL behind every number 
WITH bars AS
(
    SELECT
        toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))  AS session_day,
        toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')          AS et,
        toFloat64(close)                                      AS px
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'SPY'
      AND window_start >= today() - 370
      AND window_start <  today() - 2
      AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
           + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) >= 570
      AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
           + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) <  960
),
anchors AS
(
    SELECT
        session_day,
        argMin(px, et) AS open_px,
        argMax(px, et) AS close_px
    FROM bars
    GROUP BY session_day
)
SELECT
    formatDateTime(toStartOfInterval(b.et, INTERVAL 30 MINUTE), '%H:%i') AS et_time,
    round(avg(abs(b.px / a.close_px - 1)) * 100, 3)                      AS avg_gap_to_close_pct,
    round(avg(abs(b.px / a.open_px  - 1)) * 100, 3)                      AS avg_gap_to_open_pct
FROM bars AS b
INNER JOIN anchors AS a ON a.session_day = b.session_day
GROUP BY et_time
ORDER BY et_time

Run your own version of this

The same 22 years of US equities and 12 years of options data are queryable in SQL or plain English. A free account runs 100 queries a day and takes no card.

More from this analysisBest Time of Day to Sell a Mutual Fund
Average one-day move across six widely held funds, since 2021 ranking 6×2 → Overnight gap versus the session that follows, complete years ranking 5×3 → How big a one-day move usually is, sessions since 2016 ranking 5×2 → One session's price path, SPY every 15 minutes on June 17, 2026 series 27×2 → Share of SPY's session volume by half hour, June 2026 average series 13×2 → Distance from the 10:00 a.m. ET price to the close, SPY, by month series 12×4 → See all 2,170 queries →