The four forex sessions and what each one is like

The market runs 24 hours, but not all 24 are alike. Matching the session to your strategy usually
makes more difference than changing indicators.

1. Four sessions, in UTC

Times below are winter (standard time). In summer the European and US centres shift an hour earlier
in UTC terms as daylight saving takes effect.

• Sydney — 21:00 to 06:00. Opens the week, low volume.
• Tokyo — 23:00 to 08:00.
  Liquidity concentrated in JPY, AUD and NZD.
• London — 08:00 to 17:00. The largest session in the world.
• New York — 13:00 to 22:00.

2. What each session is like

Asia (23:00–08:00)

Narrow ranges, unclear trends. Often builds the sideways area that London then breaks.
Spreads on European pairs are wider than they will be in
London hours.

Suits: range strategies, JPY and AUD pairs, and anyone whose daytime falls in this
window.

London (08:00–17:00)

The largest volume, the tightest spreads, and where the day’s trend usually forms. European and UK
data is released in this window.

Suits: almost any strategy, especially breakout and trend trading.

London–New York overlap (13:00–17:00)

The four highest-liquidity hours of the day. Most US data is published at 12:30 or 13:30
UTC, right at the start of this window.

Suits: scalping, news trading, and
anything that needs good fills and tight spreads.

Late New York (17:00–22:00)

Once London closes, volume falls away quickly. From 20:00 to 22:00 is the thinnest stretch of the
day.

Suits: almost nothing. This is the window to avoid opening new positions in.

3. How the days of the week differ

• Monday — usually quiet, the market waiting for direction.
• Tuesday to Thursday — the best volume and range.
• Friday — lively in the European afternoon, but through the second half of the US
  session desks close positions and trends reverse easily.

4. Choose the session by your calendar, not by theory

Traders in Asia-Pacific time zones often stay up past 02:00 local time to “trade the US session” and
then trade badly through lack of sleep. An average strategy run alert during London is almost always
better than a good strategy run exhausted.

The window 08:00–16:00 UTC covers the whole of London and the first part of the US session. For most
people with a day job, that is the realistic choice — whichever local clock it maps onto.

5. One thing worth doing once

Go back through your trading journal and group the results by
hour of the day. A great many traders discover that all of their losses cluster in a single window —
and the solution is simply to stop trading in it.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice. Conditions and fee levels are published by the brokers and can change at any time — check with the broker you actually use. Leveraged forex and CFD trading carries a high level of risk and can cost you your entire deposit.