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Day-of-Week Effect: Mondays Have the Smallest Range, Thursdays the Largest, and Fridays Close Up Most Often

Contents
  1. Direction: only Friday stands out a little
  2. Al Brooks on week-end and month-end buying
  3. Mean and median aren’t the same
  4. Range: smallest on Monday, largest on Thursday
  5. Definition and how to reproduce it
  6. Limitations

Bottom line: across the five weekdays, direction barely differs. 54.6% of all days close up in RTH; only Friday is a bit higher (58.1%), and that’s true in both 2010–2017 and 2018–2026.

The range differences are clearer and more stable: Monday’s median intraday range is 0.83%, the smallest; Thursday’s is 0.96%, the largest. Both halves of the data show the same order.

Al Brooks’ idea that money tends to buy at the end of the week and the end of the month, so prices tend to rise: Friday fits; but the last trading day of the month is actually more likely to fall, closing up in RTH only 47.6% of the time.

How I use it: I don’t use the weekday to call direction. But it helps set expectations: on Mondays I don’t put targets too far away, and on Thursdays I leave my stops a bit wider.

Trading folklore has plenty of weekday sayings: “Mondays like to reverse”, “longs take profits before the Friday close”, “Thursdays tend to sell off”. I split 16 years of ES trading days by weekday and looked at three things: the share of up days, the mean and median change, and the intraday range.

2010–2026 · sample 3,924 days · all days up 54.6% · median intraday range 0.90%

Share of up daysRTH close above the RTH open. Dot: the rate; line: 95% interval; dashed line: all days (54.6%).

40% 50% 60% 70% MonTueWedThuFri

How to read it: the vertical line is the 95% interval. Given this many days, the true rate most likely sits inside it, and the fewer the days, the longer the line. Only when the whole line sits on one side of the dashed line can you say that weekday differs from normal; if the line crosses the dashed line, the gap may just be luck.

Mean and median changeA few big up or down days pull the mean around; the median is the typical day.

Mean changeMedian change
−0.15% −0.10% −0.05% 0 +0.05% +0.10% +0.15% MonTueWedThuFri

Intraday range(RTH high − RTH low) ÷ open. Bar: median; dot: mean.

0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 0.83% 0.89% 0.93% 0.96% 0.89% MonTueWedThuFri

Weekdays follow the calendar: in a week with a Monday holiday, Tuesday is still Tuesday. Close to close requires yesterday to be the previous stock-market trading day on the same contract. Hover (or tap) the charts to see every number for that weekday.

Direction: only Friday stands out a little

WeekdayDaysRTH upUp close to close
All days3,92454.6%55.2%
Monday69855.7%57.9%
Tuesday83853.1%52.7%
Wednesday83352.2%56.1%
Thursday81854.4%54.3%
Friday73758.1%55.7%

RTH up: the RTH close is above the RTH open. Up close to close: today’s close is above yesterday’s close, including the overnight move.

Al Brooks on week-end and month-end buying

In a March 2024 live session, Al Brooks talked about quarter-end “window dressing”: institutions have to file quarterly reports and want those reports to show they own the stocks that did well, so they buy into the end of the quarter, and the market tends to rally into month end. The idea is often extended to every Friday and every month end: fund managers want the accounts they manage to look good at each reporting point, so everyone leans toward buying; the more people buy, the more prices tend to rise, and rising prices draw in more buyers. So weeks, months and quarters should close up a little more often.

Checking that against ES data:

DaysRTH upUp close to close
All days3,92454.6%55.2%
Friday73758.1%55.7%
Month end18747.6%45.4%
Quarter end6451.6%54.7%

Month end: the last stock market trading day of each month; quarter end: the month end in March, June, September and December. Months where that day was removed in cleaning don’t count.

So in ES, “end of the week leans bullish” holds up, but “end of the month leans bullish” doesn’t, at least not on the last trading day. One possible reason (not tested): Al was describing the general tendency in the last week or two before quarter end, not the very last day; and on the last day of the month, big money rebalances, selling some stock after a run-up, which could offset the buying or even reverse it. In the same live session, Al himself said calendar patterns are never very strong and you won’t make much money trading them.

Mean and median aren’t the same

The second chart shows both the mean and the median change, and on some weekdays they differ quite a bit. For example, close to close, Monday’s mean is only +0.04%, but its median is +0.08%, higher than Tuesday’s or Thursday’s.

The reason is that a few big down days pull the mean lower: of the 5 biggest close-to-close drops in 16 years, 3 were Mondays (2020-03-16 −10.45%, 2020-03-09 −7.25%, 2011-08-08 −7.16%), all after big weekend news that hit all at once on Monday.

So for a “typical day”, look at the median; the mean is easily skewed by a few extreme days.

Range: smallest on Monday, largest on Thursday

WeekdayAll2010–20172018–2026
Monday0.83%0.75%0.88%
Tuesday0.89%0.84%0.94%
Wednesday0.93%0.85%0.98%
Thursday0.96%0.89%1.04%
Friday0.89%0.79%1.00%

The numbers are the median intraday range: (RTH high − RTH low) ÷ open.

Definition and how to reproduce it

Day-of-week effect

  • Data: cleaned 1-minute ES bars, 2010-06 to 2026-09, 3,924 trading days. See how I cleaned it.
  • RTH: 09:30–16:15 US Eastern. The open is the open of the 09:30 1-minute bar, and the close is the close of the 16:14 bar.
  • RTH up day: RTH close > RTH open.
  • Close to close: (today’s close − yesterday’s close) ÷ yesterday’s close. Yesterday = the previous stock market trading day, with the same rules as the prior-day breakout post; if yesterday was removed in cleaning, or the two days are on different contracts, the day doesn’t count.
  • Intraday range: (RTH high − RTH low) ÷ open, the same as in the intraday range post.
  • Weekday: by calendar. In a week with a Monday holiday, Tuesday is still Tuesday.
  • Month end / quarter end: month end is the last stock market trading day of each month (by the NYSE calendar), and months where that day was removed don’t count; quarter end is the month end in March, June, September and December.
  • 95% interval: calculated with the Wilson method; it means “given this many days, the true rate most likely falls in this range”.

Limitations


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