Trading & Markets
Trading Sessions (RTH and ETH)
Futures trade nearly 23 hours, split into Regular Trading Hours (the US day session) and Electronic/overnight hours. Liquidity, behavior, and many prop rules differ by session.
In plain English
RTH for US index futures is the 9:30am to 4pm Eastern equity session, when volume and institutional participation peak. Everything outside is ETH: the overnight session that carries Asia and Europe, thinner but continuous, with a daily maintenance halt.
Session context drives strategy: the overnight range frames the open, opening range breakouts key off RTH, and levels like the midnight open matter to some styles. Prop rules lean on sessions too: cutoff times for flattening positions, and end-of-day drawdowns keyed to the settlement, not midnight.
- The ES overnight range is 5002 to 5016.
- At the RTH open, price sweeps 5016, fails, and rotates back through the range: a textbook session-transition trade.