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Day TradingUpdated daily after close · as of 2026-06-29

Bull vs Bear Power: ES & NQ Intraday Session Dominance

Who controlled the regular session — bulls or bears? We sum every 5-minute candle body in the 8:30–3:00 CT cash session for ES and NQ futures and measure the share won by up-candles, with a 30-session moving average for direction.

The reading · ES

As of the June 29, 2026 close, the S&P 500 (ES) regular session leaned bullish: 54.9% of total 5-minute candle-body went to up-candles (1.22× more green body than red). The 30-session average sits at 50.7% and is easing. Since 2009, the average session bull share is 50.7%, with 52% of sessions net-bullish — a descriptive read of who controlled the tape, not a forecast.

Source
ES & NQ continuous 5-minute bars from TradeStation, regular cash session only (2009–present)
Methodology
Sum green vs red 5-min candle bodies per session; bull share % = green ÷ (green+red); 30-session moving average for direction
Updates
Daily after US market close (~1pm PT)Last: 2026-06-29
Maintained & reviewed by Yuriy Matso — methodology shown on the page.
Bull share · ES2026-06-29 · session
54.9%
1.22×

Up-candles did more of the work — bulls controlled the session body.

30-sess avg
50.7%
▼ easing
Baseline
50.7%
since 2009
Bull sessions
52%
share > 50%

180 pts of up-body vs 148 down across 78 five-minute candles.S&P 500 (ES) closed at 7,492.5.

Symbol:S&P 500 (ES)
01

Price vs bull share — S&P 500 (ES)

S&P 500 (ES) price on top; below it the 30-session moving average of the bull share. The shaded regime bands mark how far the tilt sits from the 50% standoff — bull / strong bull above, bear / strong bear below (band edges are ±1 standard deviation of the moving average). A line holding in the green is a persistent bull grip on the intraday tape. Toggle individual sessions on for the raw noise behind the average.

Window:loading history…
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How Bull vs Bear Power Works

  1. 1
    Take every 5-minute candle in the regular session
    We pull 5-minute bars for the ES and NQ continuous futures and keep only the regular cash session — 8:30 AM to 3:00 PM Central (9:30–4:00 Eastern), 78 candles on a normal day.
  2. 2
    Measure each candle's body
    For every candle the body is close minus open. A green candle (close above open) is bull effort; a red candle (close below open) is bear effort. We sum all the green bodies and, separately, all the red bodies for the session.
  3. 3
    Compute the bull share and ratio
    Bull share % = green body sum ÷ (green + red), so 50% is a perfect standoff, above 50% means up-candles did more of the work, below 50% means down-candles dominated. We also show it as a ratio (green ÷ red, where 1.0 is balanced).
  4. 4
    Smooth it with a 30-session moving average
    A single session is noisy, so we plot a 30-session moving average of the bull share. Its level and slope show the prevailing intraday tilt — whether bulls or bears have been winning the body battle over the last six weeks, and whether that grip is strengthening or fading.

Who Uses Bull vs Bear Power

Day Traders
Read the session character. A run of high-bull-share days means up-candles are doing the work — dips get bought intraday; a contracting share warns the easy long tape is turning.
Futures Traders
Built on the instruments you actually trade — ES and NQ — using the regular cash session, not a 24-hour blend. Compare the S&P and Nasdaq tape side by side.
Swing Traders
A confirmation lens. When price grinds higher but the 30-session bull share rolls over, the intraday buying behind the move is thinning even before price breaks.
Systematic Traders
A clean, decades-long series (2009+) of session body dominance to test against forward returns, regime filters or volatility states.

Pro Tips

01
Watch the 30-session line, not the daily
One session swings wildly. The moving average is the signal: a level holding above 50 is a persistent bull grip on the tape; below 50 is persistent bear control.
02
50% is the line that matters
The all-history average sits a hair above 50 — the market's gentle upward drift. Readings well above or below that baseline are what stand out, not the raw level.
03
It confirms, it doesn't predict
Body dominance is descriptive — it tracks the trend it measures. Use it to characterize the current tape and to spot divergences from price, not as a standalone entry trigger.
04
Compare ES vs NQ
When NQ's bull share runs well ahead of ES, large-cap tech is carrying the session character; when it lags, the leadership has shifted. The toggle makes the spread easy to eyeball.

Common Issues & Solutions

Why does the share hover so close to 50%?▾
Because over a full session green and red bodies are usually close to balanced — that is the nature of two-sided auction. Small, persistent tilts away from 50 are meaningful precisely because the baseline is so stable.
Is this the same as how much the market went up?▾
No. A session can close up while bear bodies were larger (a few sharp red candles), or close down on balanced bodies. Bull share measures who did the work inside the session, not the net close-to-close change.
Why futures (ES/NQ) instead of SPY/QQQ?▾
Futures are the deepest, most liquid intraday instruments and what most active index traders use. We still restrict to the regular cash session so the reading is comparable to a stock-market day.
What about half-days?▾
Early-close sessions (the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, etc.) have fewer candles but the share and ratio are still valid since they are normalized — they are included as real sessions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is bull vs bear power?▾
It measures who controlled a trading session — bulls or bears — by summing the bodies (close minus open) of every 5-minute candle. The share of total body that came from up-candles is the bull share: 50% is balanced, above 50% means buyers did more of the intraday work, below 50% means sellers did.
How is the bull share calculated?▾
For each 5-minute candle in the 8:30–3:00 CT regular session we take the body (close − open). Green bodies are summed into a bull total and red bodies into a bear total. Bull share % = bull total ÷ (bull total + bear total) × 100. The ratio version is bull total ÷ bear total.
What does the 30-session moving average show?▾
It smooths out daily noise to reveal the prevailing intraday tilt over roughly six weeks. A 30-session average holding above 50 means up-candles have persistently dominated; below 50 means down-candles have. A rising line means the bull grip is strengthening, a falling line that it is fading.
Which instruments does it cover?▾
ES (E-mini S&P 500) and NQ (E-mini Nasdaq-100) continuous futures, using only the regular cash session. Toggle between them to compare the broad market and large-cap tech.
Can I trade off this directly?▾
It is best used as context, not a trigger. Body dominance is descriptive — it tracks the trend it measures — so its value is in characterizing the current tape and flagging divergences from price, alongside your other tools.
How far back does the data go?▾
Both series start in 2009, giving more than 15 years of regular-session history, and update after every US market close.

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Seasonality
SPY & QQQ average returns by calendar month and the seasonal path
Last updated: 2026-06-29