Buy a turnip for 90 Bells on Sunday morning, and by Wednesday afternoon that same turnip can sell for over 600 — a near-7x return that plenty of players stumble into by accident, then lose right back the following week buying at the top of a pattern that was never going to spike again. The Stalk Market looks like a coin flip, but it isn’t one: the game locks in one of four hidden weekly patterns the moment you buy from Daisy Mae, and every price you’ll see through Saturday is generated from that pattern’s own rules. Those rules aren’t a developer secret — they were pulled directly from the game’s decompiled code back in 2020 and have driven every turnip-prediction tool since. This guide breaks down what each pattern actually does, gives you a data-point-by-data-point test for figuring out which one you’re on starting Tuesday morning, and lays out what to do differently depending on how much time you’re willing to spend chasing it.
Quick Start — the Stalk Market in 5 steps:
- Buy turnips from Daisy Mae on Sunday between 5 a.m. and noon, before Nook’s Cranny opens — she sells them for 90-110 Bells each, and that Sunday price is the base every later price gets multiplied against.[2]
- Write down (or screenshot) the price at Nook’s Cranny every morning and every afternoon, Monday through Saturday — the shop posts a new price at 8 a.m. and another at noon.[3]
- By Tuesday morning, use your first 3-4 data points to start ruling patterns out (Section 4 below has the exact test).
- Sell everything by Saturday close (10 p.m.) — Nook’s Cranny does not buy turnips on Sunday, so anything left over rots.[3]
- If your own island’s prices are bad, check a friend’s multiplayer island visit — each island runs its own independent Stalk Market.
How Daisy Mae’s Sunday Price Sets the Week
Every number you’ll see at Nook’s Cranny for the next six days is a percentage of whatever you pay Daisy Mae on Sunday morning. She shows up once Nook’s Cranny is built, sells in bundles, and prices each turnip somewhere between 90 and 110 Bells — you can buy up to 4,000 turnips in one visit if your wallet and inventory can take it.[2] If you’re still working through the basics of getting Nook’s Cranny open in the first place, our ACNH beginner’s guide covers that setup.
That Sunday number matters more than most players give it credit for. Every pattern’s price swings are calculated as a percentage of the purchase price, not a fixed Bell amount — buy at 110 instead of 90 and every phase of your week’s pattern shifts up with it. A Large Spike off a 90-Bell buy can crack 600 Bells; the same pattern off a 110-Bell buy pushes higher still, since 600% of 110 clears 660, which is the hard ceiling the game allows.[1] Low Sunday prices aren’t a bad sign — they just mean smaller absolute numbers relative to a spike, not a worse chance of getting one.
The 4 Stalk Market Patterns, Decoded
The Stalk Market isn’t actually random on a day-to-day basis — the game picks one of four patterns the moment you buy from Daisy Mae, then generates the rest of the week’s prices from that pattern’s rules. This entire mechanic was reverse-engineered from the game’s own code by the dataminer Ninji in April 2020, and the exact phase-by-phase math was later compiled by the community into what’s still the reference document every price-prediction calculator (Turnip Prophet and its successors) runs on.[1]
| Pattern | Shape | Peak range | When it peaks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Large Spike | Falls steadily for 1-3 days, then jumps sharply over 2 half-days before crashing back down | 200-600% of buy price (up to ~660 Bells) | One 2-half-day window, Monday PM through Thursday PM |
| Small Spike | Falls, rises to a single peak half-day, falls again | 140-200% of buy price (roughly 130-220 Bells) | One half-day, usually mid-to-late week |
| Random (Fluctuating) | Bounces between 3 rising and 2 falling phases all week — no single dominant peak | 90-140% of buy price | No fixed peak; several smaller windows |
| Decreasing | Falls every single day, no reversal | Never exceeds ~90% of buy price | Never — this is the pattern you’re trying to rule out |
What most guides leave out is that these patterns aren’t equally likely to follow each other. The datamine’s own transition table shows your previous week’s pattern skews the odds for this week: coming off a Large Spike week, you have only a 5% chance of another Large Spike, but a 50% chance of landing on Random instead — the game is deliberately weighted against back-to-back spikes.[1] Coming off a Decreasing week, though, your odds of a Large Spike jump to 45%, the highest of any starting condition. If last week burned you, this week is statistically your best shot at a rebound.
The Tuesday-Morning Test: Reading Your Own Price Data
You don’t need a calculator to get useful information out of your own prices — you need to know what to look for, and when. Every pattern that isn’t Decreasing starts its week by acting exactly like a Decreasing week: prices fall from Monday morning onward, sometimes into Tuesday or even Wednesday, before a spike pattern suddenly reverses direction.[3] That shared opening is exactly why you can’t call a pattern from Monday’s price alone, and why Tuesday morning — your third data point of the week — is the earliest checkpoint worth acting on.
Here’s the practical test: if Tuesday morning’s price is still falling, you can’t yet rule out Decreasing, but you also haven’t ruled out any spike pattern, since all three can still be in their opening decline. What Tuesday morning does let you do is start comparing your actual numbers against the Section 3 table — a price sitting near 90% of your buy cost by Tuesday AM is tracking normally for any pattern; one already below 65% is falling faster than a typical spike’s opening decline and starts to smell like Decreasing. The real confirmation point is Thursday afternoon: if the price is still dropping by then, you almost certainly have a Decreasing week and should stop holding out for a reversal.[3]
Your Player-Type Playbook
What you should actually do with a given price reading depends on how much time and risk tolerance you’re bringing to the Stalk Market, not just what pattern you’re on.
| Player type | What to do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New player | Sell the moment you clear your Sunday buy price, even at a modest profit like 120-140 Bells | You’re still learning the pattern shapes — a guaranteed small win beats gambling turnip-slot inventory space you probably need for early DIY materials |
| Casual player | Check prices twice a day, sell once you’re clearly past 150% of buy price, and spend the rest of your play session on Nook Miles goals instead of price-watching | Chasing the exact peak costs more real time than the extra Bells are worth if you’re not already logging in twice daily; our Nook Miles guide covers efficient ways to fill that downtime |
| Hardcore / optimiser | Log every AM/PM price, run the Tuesday test above, and if your own island stalls near Decreasing by midweek, check Discord or friends’ multiplayer island visits for a Large or Small Spike in progress | Turnips rot on your island only — flying to someone else’s Large Spike island via a Dodo code sells at their price, not yours, and a good spike friend is worth more over a season than any single week’s RNG |
The Saturday Deadline — and What to Do If You’re Stuck With a Bad Week
Nook’s Cranny stops buying turnips the moment its Saturday 10 p.m. close rolls around, and it doesn’t reopen for turnip sales until Monday — Daisy Mae’s Sunday morning visit is for buying next week’s batch, not selling last week’s leftovers.[3] Anything still in your pockets or storage when that window closes simply rots. Rotten turnips aren’t worthless — Redd will occasionally take them off your hands as a DIY ingredient for a handful of recipes — but you’ll never recover anywhere close to what you paid.
If it’s Friday evening and your island’s price still hasn’t cleared your buy cost, don’t keep waiting on your own island out of stubbornness. Check whether the pattern is Decreasing (per the Thursday test above) — if it is, your best remaining move is a friend’s island with a spike in progress, not one more day of hoping your own island turns around. A guaranteed break-even trade on someone else’s island beats a guaranteed loss on your own.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I time-travel to fix a bad turnip week?
You technically can — set the Switch’s clock forward and Nook’s Cranny will show a new price. But turnips are one of the few ACNH systems where the downside of a bad week is capped (you can never lose more than your original buy price, since the floor is ~9 Bells), while time-traveling risks knocking villagers’ move-out timers and holiday events out of sync in ways that are much harder to undo. For most players the ceiling on the loss doesn’t justify the risk to the rest of your save.
Can I get two Large Spike weeks in a row?
Yes, but the datamine puts the odds at just 5% coming off a Large Spike week — the lowest transition probability in the entire table.[1] Don’t plan your next week’s Bell budget around a repeat; the far more likely outcomes after a Large Spike are Random (50%) or Small Spike (25%).
Is the Stalk Market worth bothering with for a new player?
In small quantities, yes. A modest 10-turnip Sunday buy costs under 1,100 Bells and even a mediocre week clears a profit without tying up much storage — the real cost for beginners isn’t Bells, it’s turnip-slot inventory space competing with early DIY materials. Scale up your buy size only once you’ve got storage upgrades and aren’t relying on those slots for crafting.
Will a friend’s island always have a better price than mine?
No — each island runs its own independent Stalk Market roll, so a friend’s island is just as likely to be sitting on a Decreasing week as yours is.[4] Check before you fly; a wasted Dodo code trip to a bad island costs you real time you could’ve spent tracking your own.
Key Takeaways
The Stalk Market rewards pattern reading over guesswork: track both daily prices, run the Tuesday check to start narrowing your options, and treat Thursday afternoon as your real confirmation point. Sell out fully by Saturday close, and remember the transition odds work in your favor after a bad week — a Decreasing week gives you the best statistical shot at a Large Spike next time. Verified against current game mechanics as of the 2026 Switch 2 update — no patch since the Stalk Market’s 2020 launch has altered the underlying pattern algorithm.
Sources
- “ACNH Turnip Price Pattern Algorithms” — community datamine analysis (Ninji/u/Edricus)
- Digital Trends — How to play the turnip Stalk Market in Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- GameRevolution — When do turnip prices change in Animal Crossing: New Horizons?
- GameWith — ACNH Turnip Prices Guide: Best Time To Sell
- Game8 — How to Find Daisy Mae
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.