Price: mark price · perpetual futures / vs. 24h earlier / / Saved / stale
The S&P 500 outside U.S. cash hours and on weekends
- Across 104 weekday overnight windows (17 hours), the median absolute change was 0.30%.
- The weekend window (65 hours) came to 0.34% over 23 weekends, and the session observation window (7 hours) to 0.42%.
- The figures are perpetual-futures reference values, not the S&P 500 index itself.
Section highlights (4)
- The index moves during U.S. cash hours.
- Session observation window = 7 hours, overnight window = 17 hours, weekend window = 65 hours. The five holiday-spanning windows are handled separately.
- Five holiday-spanning windows, 89 hours each. By month, the overnight window median was above the session observation window median in one of seven months (August).
- What the board displays is a perpetual-futures reference value.
Contents
The S&P 500 index is calculated during the U.S. regular session, 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET). After 4:00 p.m. the index value stops updating until the next session.
Prices tied to the index keep printing after the close. S&P 500 ETFs trade in the after-hours and pre-market sessions, and E-mini S&P 500 futures trade through most of the night.
How much does such a price move between 4:00 p.m. and the next morning, or from Friday to Monday? This article measures it with one-hour candles of the perpetual future that tracks the S&P 500.
The windows start on dates from Mar 19 to Sep 25, 2026. They cover 104 weekday overnight windows and 23 weekends.
The second half examines saved hourly bars, daily snapshots of mark and oracle prices and turnover, and the velocity-alert log and saved daily high.
The S&P 500 and U.S. cash hours
An index built from about 500 companies
The S&P 500 is a stock index calculated from the share prices of about 500 leading U.S. companies.
The hours the index moves
The U.S. regular session runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
| Period | U.S. Eastern Time | UTC |
|---|---|---|
| Daylight saving time | 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 13:30 – 20:00 UTC |
| Standard time | 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. | 14:30 – 21:00 UTC |
In Eastern Time the regular session does not shift; what shifts is the UTC mapping. The records in this article are stored in UTC.
The index moves during U.S. cash hours.
What was measured, and how
Data and coverage
The data are one-hour candles of the perpetual future that tracks the S&P 500. The values come from the public API named in the source line above. They were retrieved on Sep 29, 2026.
The candles returned begin at 13:00 UTC (9:00 a.m. ET) on Mar 18, 2026. There are 4,678 confirmed candles, and none is missing.
The last candle had not yet closed when the data were retrieved. It is not used.
Three windows
One-hour candles are cut on the hour. Each boundary is therefore the close of the last one-hour candle confirmed before the target time. Times are ET.
| Window | Definition | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Session observation window | close of the last one-hour candle before 9:30 a.m. → close of the last one-hour candle before 4:00 p.m. | 7 hours |
| Overnight window | close of the last one-hour candle before 4:00 p.m. → close of the last one-hour candle before 9:30 a.m. the next day | 17 hours |
| Weekend window | close of the last one-hour candle before 4:00 p.m. on Friday → close of the last one-hour candle before 9:30 a.m. on Monday | 65 hours |
“The last one-hour candle before” a target time is the last candle confirmed ahead of it. The 9:30 a.m. boundary therefore falls at 9:00 a.m. sharp, and the 4:00 p.m. boundary at 4:00 p.m. sharp.
The observation windows are aggregation windows aligned to candle closes. They are not the cash session: the session observation window starts 30 minutes before the 9:30 a.m. open.
The windows in clock time
Every window in the period fell under U.S. daylight saving time, when ET is UTC minus 4 hours. The windows map as follows.
| Window | ET | UTC (U.S. daylight saving time) |
|---|---|---|
| Session observation window | 9:00 a.m. → 4:00 p.m. | 13:00 → 20:00 |
| Overnight window | 4:00 p.m. → 9:00 a.m. next day | 20:00 → 13:00 next day |
| Weekend window | Friday 4:00 p.m. → Monday 9:00 a.m. | Friday 20:00 → Monday 13:00 |
Windows counted and windows set aside
An overnight window is counted only when the next day is also a U.S. business day. There are 104 of them. A weekend window is counted when both the Friday and the Monday are business days. There are 23.
Five windows span a weekday market holiday. Each is 89 hours long, so they are in neither the overnight nor the weekend count. They are listed in a separate table.
Market holidays follow this site's holiday calendar. No window was dropped for a missing candle. Nothing was interpolated.
Session observation window = 7 hours, overnight window = 17 hours, weekend window = 65 hours. The five holiday-spanning windows are handled separately.
From this site's records
The central figures
Change = (ending close ÷ starting close − 1) × 100. Values are rounded to two decimals for display only. The session observation window column uses the same 104 days as the overnight window.
| Item | Session observation window (N=104) | Overnight window (N=104) | Weekend window (N=23) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median absolute change | 0.42% | 0.30% | 0.34% |
| Windows beyond ±0.5% | 35.58% (37/104) | 24.04% (25/104) | 39.13% (9/23) |
| Windows beyond ±1% | 7.69% (8/104) | 4.81% (5/104) | 13.04% (3/23) |
| Largest rise | +1.76% (Mar 31, 2026) | +2.62% (night of Apr 7, 2026) | +1.92% (from Mar 20, 2026) |
| Largest fall | -1.45% (Jul 29, 2026) | -1.58% (night of Apr 1, 2026) | -0.67% (from Sep 11, 2026) |
Dates are the start date of each window in ET. “Night of Apr 7, 2026” is the window from 4:00 p.m. on Apr 7 to 9:00 a.m. on Apr 8.
Reading the overnight window
The median absolute change of the overnight window was 0.30%. For the session observation window on the same 104 days it was 0.42%.
The overnight absolute change was larger than the same day's session observation window on 44 days. That is 42.31% of the 104 days.
The largest rise, +2.62%, and the largest fall, -1.58%, were both in the overnight window. In this record the median is larger for the session observation window and the extremes are larger for the overnight window.
Reading the weekend window
The median absolute change of the weekend window was 0.34%. Three of the 23 weekends were beyond ±1%.
The weekend absolute change was larger than the preceding Friday's session observation window on 14 occasions. That is 60.87% of the 23. The median for those 23 Friday session observation windows was 0.24%.
The windows differ in length
The three windows are not the same length. The overnight window is 10 hours longer than the session observation window, and the weekend window is 58 hours longer.
The table gives the change over each whole interval of 7, 17 and 65 hours. It is not a comparison of change per hour.
Share of the 24-hour range outside the session observation window
A second measure is the range. The denominator is the high-to-low range over the 24 hours from the start of the session observation window. The numerator is the range made by the 17 candles of the overnight window alone.
The formula is (overnight-window high − low) ÷ (24-hour high − low) × 100. The median of that share was 72.01% and the mean was 67.94%, over 104 days.
The share is the size of the overnight-window range against the 24-hour range. It does not add up to 100% with the range of the session observation window.
What is not in this record
No official S&P 500 index value is stored in these records. Every comparison stays inside this perpetual future's own candles. No gap to a cash open or a cash close was calculated.
The largest windows
Top five overnight windows
The five largest absolute changes among the 104 overnight windows.
| Start date (ET) | Weekday | Overnight window change | Session observation window change, same day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 7, 2026 | Tue | +2.62% | +0.54% |
| Apr 1, 2026 | Wed | -1.58% | +0.31% |
| Jun 22, 2026 | Mon | -1.43% | -0.37% |
| Sep 16, 2026 | Wed | +1.26% | -0.74% |
| May 14, 2026 | Thu | -1.14% | +0.48% |
On all five days the overnight absolute change was larger than the same day's session observation window.
Top five weekend windows
The five largest absolute changes among the 23 weekend windows.
| Friday (start) | Monday (end) | Weekend window change | Friday session observation window change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 20, 2026 | Mar 23, 2026 | +1.92% | -1.21% |
| Jun 12, 2026 | Jun 15, 2026 | +1.29% | +0.44% |
| Jun 26, 2026 | Jun 29, 2026 | +1.08% | +0.04% |
| Mar 27, 2026 | Mar 30, 2026 | +0.94% | -1.33% |
| Jul 24, 2026 | Jul 27, 2026 | +0.89% | -0.01% |
These tables record the values that occurred. The record does not identify why a change happened.
Holiday-spanning windows and the monthly breakdown
Five windows spanning a weekday market holiday
| Starting business day | Market holiday | Next business day | Length | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2, 2026 | Apr 3, 2026 | Apr 6, 2026 | 89 hours | +0.20% |
| May 22, 2026 | May 25, 2026 | May 26, 2026 | 89 hours | +0.74% |
| Jun 18, 2026 | Jun 19, 2026 | Jun 22, 2026 | 89 hours | +0.04% |
| Jul 2, 2026 | Jul 3, 2026 | Jul 6, 2026 | 89 hours | +0.51% |
| Sep 4, 2026 | Sep 7, 2026 | Sep 8, 2026 | 89 hours | -0.10% |
In all five, a weekend and a market holiday ran together. With so few windows, no median is given.
Monthly breakdown
| Month | Overnight windows | Session observation window median | Overnight window median | Range share median | Weekend windows |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 7 | 0.87% | 0.49% | 82.81% | 2 |
| Apr 2026 | 17 | 0.31% | 0.28% | 71.44% | 3 |
| May 2026 | 15 | 0.40% | 0.32% | 72.51% | 4 |
| Jun 2026 | 17 | 0.51% | 0.28% | 61.29% | 3 |
| Jul 2026 | 17 | 0.37% | 0.26% | 72.11% | 4 |
| Aug 2026 | 17 | 0.30% | 0.38% | 77.16% | 4 |
| Sep 2026 | 14 | 0.41% | 0.26% | 70.81% | 3 |
The session observation and overnight columns are medians of absolute change. Months follow the start date. March runs from Mar 19 and September to Sep 24.
The overnight window median was above the session observation window median in one of the seven months: August.
Reading notes
Start dates run from Mar 19 to Sep 25, 2026. No window falls under U.S. standard time. These are figures for what this period recorded.
Five holiday-spanning windows, 89 hours each. By month, the overnight window median was above the session observation window median in one of seven months (August).
Nights and weekends in the hourly bars, 25 August to 10 October
Separately from the table above, we counted the hourly bars this site has stored. The sample contains 1,106 hourly bars, starting at 00:00 UTC on 25 August and ending before 02:00 UTC on 10 October 2026, with no missing hours. Bars before 6 October were retrieved retrospectively on 6 October; they were not observed live by this site. Hours are grouped by each bar's start time in UTC. These are clock bands, including weekday holidays and lunch breaks, rather than exchange-session classifications.
Trades and turnover by time of day
| Hours (UTC) | Hours counted | Median trades per hour | Share of turnover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekdays, 14:00–19:59 | 204 | 2,428.5 | 43.3% |
| Weekdays, 00:00–05:59 | 204 | 1,126 | 11.3% |
| Other weekday hours | 408 | 1,553 | 38.2% |
| Saturday and Sunday | 290 | 926.5 | 7.2% |
Turnover is an estimate: each bar's volume times its close, summed, in USDC. The weekend was 290 of the 1,106 hours and 7.2% of turnover. No hour, weekend or weekday, had zero trades.
The 50-hour weekend, six times
The window runs from the Friday 20:00 UTC open to the close of the Sunday 21:00 UTC bar. In U.S. Eastern time that is Friday 16:00 to Sunday 18:00, 50 hours. Range is the window's high minus low, divided by the opening price.
| Friday date (UTC) | Change | Range | Trades |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Aug | +0.19% | 0.52% | 50,151 |
| 4 Sep | +0.16% | 0.37% | 42,776 |
| 11 Sep | -0.42% | 0.85% | 48,939 |
| 18 Sep | -0.00% | 0.42% | 52,386 |
| 25 Sep | -0.05% | 0.45% | 59,084 |
| 2 Oct | +0.11% | 0.27% | 54,697 |
The median absolute change was 0.14%, and the median range 0.43%. The 18 September window went from 7,643.4 to 7,643.2, shown as -0.00%. The weekend window earlier in this article (65 hours, 23 weekends) has a different length and period.
Sunday evening to the Monday session
We also measured from the Sunday 21:00 UTC bar's close to the Monday 14:00 UTC open. In U.S. Eastern time that is Sunday 18:00 to Monday 10:00, 16 hours.
| Friday date (UTC) | 50-hour weekend | Sun 18:00 → Mon 10:00 (ET) |
|---|---|---|
| 28 Aug | +0.19% | -0.57% |
| 4 Sep | +0.16% | -0.26% |
| 11 Sep | -0.42% | -0.12% |
| 18 Sep | -0.00% | +0.84% |
| 25 Sep | -0.05% | -0.33% |
| 2 Oct | +0.11% | +0.02% |
The 16-hour move was larger in absolute terms than the 50-hour weekend in 4 of 6 cases. Monday 7 September was a U.S. cash-market holiday (NYSE calendar). All rows use perpetual-futures prices.
The hourly turnover estimate uses volume × close; trade counts use each bar's recorded number of trades.
Gap to the reference price, and turnover (daily snapshots)
This site saves the state of every contract once a day. There are 59 snapshots from 8 August to 9 October 2026, taken between 22:04 and 23:26 UTC. The oracle price is the external reference price the provider uses as its basis.
| Snapshot day (UTC) | Count | Median gap, mark vs oracle (absolute) | Median 24-hour turnover |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon–Fri | 43 | 0.0154% | 221.09 million USDC |
| Sat–Sun | 16 | 0.0130% | 38.55 million USDC |
Weekend-snapshot turnover was 17.4% of the weekday figure. The largest gap was 0.106%, in the snapshot of 21 August at 22:05 UTC. Six weekends have Friday, Saturday and Sunday snapshots. In all six, Saturday's oracle price differed from Friday's.
Velocity alerts and the record high
This site's filtered velocity-alert log has 830 rows from 27 August to 9 October 2026. The filtered sample excludes 76 rows timestamped 22:15:21, 22:16:22 or 22:26:27 UTC on 22 September; 906 rows preceded this exclusion. Counts describe alerts, not every market move. None of the 830 rows is for the S&P 500 contract. In the daily bars, the high in the saved record is 7,843.2, set on 6 October (UTC); the record starts on 18 March and contains 203 daily bars through 6 October 2026.
ETF extended-hours trading, CME futures and CFDs are separate products and are not in this record.
Absolute price gap = |mark price ÷ oracle price − 1| × 100. Snapshot turnover is the provider's rolling 24-hour notional volume in USDC.
What StockTicker24 shows
The StockTicker24 board shows the reference value of the perpetual future that tracks the S&P 500. The display runs 24 hours a day. The hours of the overnight window and the weekend window appear on the same board.
Details of the source are set out on the About the data page. Which products can actually be traded, and when, is set out in the official information from brokers and exchanges.
What the board displays is a perpetual-futures reference value.
Common questions
Does the S&P 500 index move on the weekend?
The index updates while the U.S. market is open. Outside those hours it does not move.
What are U.S. regular trading hours?
9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET. In UTC that is 13:30 to 20:00 under daylight saving time, and 14:30 to 21:00 under standard time.
Are the figures in this article moves in the S&P 500 index?
No. They are reference values of the perpetual future that tracks the S&P 500. They can differ from the official index value.
Are the overnight window and the session observation window the same length?
No. The session observation window is 7 hours, the overnight window 17 hours and the weekend window 65 hours. The table gives the change over each interval.
How were U.S. market holidays handled?
In the March–September sample, no window starts or ends on a market holiday; five holiday-spanning windows are listed separately. The later six-weekend sample includes Monday 7 September and uses perpetual-futures prices throughout.
Can a futures position be held indefinitely?
Futures carry an expiry, the contract month. When the date arrives, the contract is settled.
Will it keep moving by the same amount?
This article does not say. It is a record of the measured period, not a forecast of future moves.
Summary
- The median absolute change of the overnight window (17 hours) was 0.30%, over 104 days.
- The weekend window (65 hours) came to 0.34% over 23 weekends, and the session observation window (7 hours) to 0.42%.
- The largest rise, +2.62%, and the largest fall, -1.58%, were both in the overnight window.
- The overnight-window range as a share of the 24-hour range had a median of 72.01%.
- These summary figures cover March–September 2026. The later hourly-bar and daily-snapshot comparisons state their separate periods; all use perpetual-futures reference values.
Record detail: 4,678 one-hour candles of the perpetual future that tracks the S&P 500 (none missing). Retrieved Sep 29, 2026.
Change log: Sep 30, 2026. Clock times restated in ET and UTC, and dates in U.S. format; the figures did not change. Sep 29, 2026. Replaced “From this site's records” with a one-hour-candle measurement. The table of 42 daily saved values was removed.
This article explains a mechanism and a measurement. It does not recommend any trade.
Source: CME “E-mini S&P 500 Futures Contract Specs”, retrieved 2026-10-10 / Nasdaq “Nasdaq Trading Schedule”, retrieved 2026-10-10 / NYSE “Hours & Calendars”, retrieved 2026-10-11 / Hyperliquid public API (saved hourly and daily bars, daily contract snapshots) / This site's filtered velocity-alert log / Published: / Last updated: / Perpetual-futures prices are reference values.