I made the following chart by taking the average % of volume in each minute for the S&P500 from Jan -> 10/3 2008. One thing that surprised me was how pronounced the 10AM, 3:40, and 3:50 minutes were. I mean, I had always heard program trading kicked in during certain periods or whatnot but I thought things would be more smooth. Now, how would one trade on such patterns? Not sure - but in the spirit of sharing what I'm looking at in the hopes of feedback, herewith the chart:
1) The only certainty is that the first and last hours of the day are busiest. Mid-day is slowest. 2) The 10am "peak" may also have more to do with economic reports that are released at that time compared to other times of the day. 3) The 3:40pm and 3:50pm peaks can also have to do with daytraders evening-up before the close. 4) Take it with a grain of salt.
Few days back wall street journal published an article saying that late day surge in volume and prices are due to new ETFs, whose fund managers buy or sell depending upon new orders. others have blamed late day price movements to hedge fund redemptions.
Ah, right. Makes sense. There are tiny peaks on each hour, too. By the way, the dark line is what volume would be if each minute had an even percentage (100%/390min). Thanks.
I've played around with average "time of day" volume. My only comment is if you're going to try to use it you may want to look a longer time frame. Probably 5 mins at a minimum and even better 10 - 15mins.
That may be from traders who use 30-minute and 60-minute bar charts along with the Market Profile guys at the beginning of each hour. Take it with a grain of salt.
I think this is very typical U-shaped trading volume distribution with the peaks at the open and the close, and the bottom during the lunch hour.
Yes, exactly, what's kind of interesting to me (not implying that it's very significant) is the regularity of the aforementioned pulses. 10AM makes sense as pointed out. Not sure about 3:40 and 3:50 -- seems like if I were doing large volume for a fund I'd pick 3:37 or 3:53 just to avoid the compressed time period. Also interesting how the afternoon ramps up while the morning volume drops precipitously. The afternoon appears to have much more of the day's volume. Market theory folks would say trading happens in response to the release of information (10AM makes sense this way). Yet the pent up information from the last evening or weekend gives relatively meager volume in the AM. Instead, there's a hurry-up-before-the-close pattern that reaches a fever pitch right before the close. I guess it's all common knowledge - I'm just trying to get a good idea of what happens on an average day.
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