NWOG fill study.

New Week Opening Gap — Fill Study (NQ)

A New Week Opening Gap (NWOG) is the difference between NQ futures' Friday 16:59 ET close and the Sunday 18:00 ET re-open. I only counted gaps of ≥50 points — smaller gaps are noise on NQ and rarely produce a clean setup.

Definition

• Instrument: NQ continuous front-month futures
• Period: 2025-01-01 → 2026-05-12
• Threshold: gap size ≥ 50 pts (absolute)
• Total qualifying gaps: 34 (14 up, 20 down)
• Average absolute gap: 202.3 pts

The 2025–2026 regime produces enormous weekend gaps — a 200-point average is double what NQ used to deliver pre-2024. These are not the small 50–75 point gaps of the past. Large macro-driven gaps behave differently: they almost always retrace to the Sunday open but fill and flip less reliably than smaller gaps.

Three gap behaviours

Every gap is classified across three outcomes, measured from the Sunday 18:00 ET open through Monday's cash close:

• Retrace — price pulls back at least to the Sunday open price. Measured in the Asia session bucket. 100.0% of all qualifying gaps retraced in Asia. Pulling back to the open is near-certain on NQ regardless of gap size.
• Fill same-day — the gap closes entirely on Monday (the cash session, not just the Sunday night). 61.8% of gaps fill same-day (21 of 34).
• Flip — among gaps that filled same-day, 81.0% continued through the Friday close and traded to the other side. A fill that reverses is the dominant outcome when NQ fills.

By session

Retrace and fill rates measured at each session boundary on Monday:

The retrace happens fast — every gap touches the Sunday open within Asia. Fills are slow: only ~3% fill in the first 30 minutes, and more than half only complete by NY PM.

By regime (2025 vs 2026)

2025 was the harder year for fills (54.5%). 2026 has been cleaner so far — 75% same-day fill with 89% of those flipping. The 2025 data was dominated by tariff-shock gaps in April and huge October–November macro moves that held open longer. 2026 is a smaller sample (12 gaps through mid-May) but shows a stronger fill-and-flip pattern.

Lifecycle of non-same-day fills

13 gaps (38.2%) did not fill on Monday. Where did they go?

Nearly half of the gaps that survived Monday never filled that week. This is the regime effect: large 2025-26 gaps are structural, not just noise. A gap that doesn't close Monday should not be assumed to close later in the week.

Context

These numbers describe behaviour only. There is no strategy claim and no edge promise here. A 100% Asia retrace rate does not mean every trade works — the fill and flip numbers show that NQ gaps in this regime are wide enough that same-day resolution is not guaranteed. Trade what you see, not what the stats imply.