Trading Sessions

Now that you know what forex is, why you should trade it, and who makes up the forex market, it's about time you learned when you can trade.

Yes, it is true that the forex market is open 24 hours a day, but that doesn't mean it's always active the whole day.

You can make money trading when the market moves up, and you can even make money when the market moves down.

BUT you will have a very difficult time trying to make money when the market doesn't move at all.

And believe us, there will be times when the market is as still as the victims of Medusa. This lesson will help determine when the best times of the day are to trade.




Market Hours


Before looking at the best times to trade, we must look at what a 24-hour day in the forex world looks like.

The forex market can be broken up into four major trading sessions: the Sydney session, the Tokyo session, the London session, and Pipcrawler's favorite time to trade, the New York session. Below are tables of the open and close times for each session:

Summer
Time Zone EDT GMT
Sydney Open
Sydney Close 6:00 PM
3:00 AM
10:00 PM
7:00 AM
Tokyo Open
Tokyo Close 7:00 PM
4:00 AM 11:00 PM
8:00 AM
London Open
London Close
3:00 AM
12:00 PM

7:00 AM
4:00 PM
New York Open
New York Close 8:00 AM
5:00 PM 12:00 PM
9:00 PM
Winter
Time Zone EST GMT
Sydney Open
Sydney Close 4:00 PM
1:00 AM
9:00 PM
6:00 AM
Tokyo Open
Tokyo Close 6:00 PM
3:00 AM 11:00 PM
8:00 AM
London Open
London Close
3:00 AM
12:00 PM

8:00 AM
5:00 PM
New York Open
New York Close 8:00 AM
5:00 PM 1:00 PM
10:00 PM
You can see that in between each session, there is a period of time where two sessions are open at the same time. From 3:00-4:00 am EDT, the Tokyo session and London session overlap, and from 8:00-12:00 am EDT, the London session and the New York session overlap.

Naturally, these are the busiest times during the trading day because there is more volume when two markets are open at the same time. This makes sense because during those times, all the market participants are wheelin' and dealin', which means that more money is transferring hands.

Now, you're probably looking at the Sydney open and thinking why it shifts two hours. You'd think that Sydney's open would only move one hour when the U.S. adjusts for standard time, but remember that when the U.S. shifts one hour back, Sydney actually moves forward by one hour (seasons are opposite in Australia). You should always remember this if you ever plan to trade during that time period.

Let's take a look at the average pip movement of the major currency pairs during each trading session.
Pair Tokyo London New York
EUR/USD 76 114 92
GBP/USD 92 127 99
USD/JPY 51 66 59
AUD/USD 77 83 81
NZD/USD 62 72 70
USD/CAD 57 96 96
USD/CHF 67 102 83
EUR/JPY 102 129 107
GBP/JPY 118 151 132
AUD/JPY 98 107 103
EUR/GBP 78 61 47
EUR/CHF 79 109 84