The NQ's US session: 3:30 pm to 10 pm
A day in the NQ, Paris time
The NQ trades almost 23 hours a day. The NQ course gives the general map, session by session. This module cuts it differently: by book regime, because it is the regime, not the hour on the clock, that decides whether an order flow read is worth anything.
Three regimes and a transformation
The NQ day in Paris time, in summer time. The height of the blocks measures flow readability, not only volume: the night is imported, the first hour is endogenous and deep, the lull is an algo desert, the afternoon becomes readable again, and the last quarter hour obeys another logic.
| Window (Paris, summer) | New York | Regime | What a book read is worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 am to 2 pm | 6 pm to 8 am | Imported: the NQ follows Asia, then Europe and rates | Walls hold for lack of aggression; no real test |
| 2 pm to 3:30 pm | 8 am to 9:30 am | Pre-market: the 2:30 pm numbers, the gap is set | Readable but treacherous, the book is not there yet |
| 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm | 9:30 am to 11:30 am | Endogenous and deep: the session that counts | Full value, this is the course's window |
| 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm | 11:30 am to 1:30 pm | The lull: TWAP algos, desks at lunch | Soft reads, divergences that do not pay |
| 7:30 pm to 9:45 pm | 1:30 pm to 3:45 pm | Afternoon: second peak, the day is decided | Good value, walls rarer but sincere |
| 9:45 pm to 10 pm | 3:45 pm to 4 pm | Close: the MOC flow and the closing cross | Another logic: we manage, we open nothing |
| 10 pm to 11 pm, then midnight | 4 pm to 5 pm, then 6 pm | After hours: earnings, near-empty book, Globex pause 11 pm to midnight | No read, except earnings nights (module 3) |
Why "endogenous" is the word that counts
Between 3:30 pm and 5:30 pm, what is placed in the NQ book is placed for reasons that concern the Nasdaq: desks execute the day's client orders, market makers rebuild depth, arbitrage with the stocks runs at full speed, and aggression comes from participants with an opinion on the index. A wall that holds at 4:20 pm is a wall somebody wanted.
At night, the NQ moves because the Nikkei moved, then because the Bund moved. The book is thin, nobody tests anything. An 80-contract wall holds for three hours, not because it is strong, but because nobody came. The NQ course already teaches it: bounce setups work at night, momentum setups trap. This course adds: draw no conclusion about a participant from a night level. The same level, at 3:45 pm, will be tested by a flow that does not know it, and that test is what informs you.
The five times to engrave
- 2:30 pm: most US macro numbers (CPI, NFP, GDP, retail sales). The day's gap is often set there.
- 3:30 pm: the stocks' opening cross; the NQ's first three minutes are convergence noise.
- 4 pm: the 10 am New York numbers (ISM, consumer confidence, home sales) and, often, the end of the first leg.
- 8 pm: on FOMC days, the decision; other days, 7 pm and its Treasury auctions, the afternoon's restart.
- 9:50 pm: the publication of closing imbalances; ten minutes later, the cash's last price and the future's settlement.
In winter, the Paris / New York offset stays at six hours, except two or three weeks in March and one week at the end of October when it falls to five: everything then moves one hour earlier in your day, and the open is at 2:30 pm. The FDAX course has a whole figure on it.
End of the free lesson
The other 23 lessons of this course, its quizzes and the completion certificate open with the Student role.
It's free: join the Discord, click the Student role, then log in with Discord here to access all courses.
→ 2 pm to 3:30 pm: the 2:30 pm numbers, the gap and the pre-market