Course 301 – Forex Trading Session

In this lesson, we’ll be learning about when you can trade.

There are different forex trading sessions and it’s time to learn about them.

It is true that the forex market is open 24 hours a day, however, doesn’t mean that the market is active throughout the day.

You can make money trading when the market moves up, and you can even make money when the market moves down, but trying to make money when the market doesn’t move at all is a very difficult task.

And believe us, those times when the market is as still as though it’s been frozen to a spot, come now and then.

With this lesson, you can determine when the best times of the day are to trade.

Forex Market Hours

Before learning about the best times to trade, we must have an understanding of what a 24-hour day in the forex world looks like.

There are four major trading sessions in the forex market: 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:

Spring/Summer in the U.S. (March/April – October/November)

LOCAL TIME	EDT	BST(GMT+1)
Sydney Open – 7:00 AM Sydney Close  – 4:00 PM	5:00 PM 2:00 AM	10:00 PM 7:00 AM
Tokyo Open – 9:00  AM Tokyo Close – 6:00 PM	8:00 PM 5:00 AM	1:00 AM 10:00 AM
London Open – 8:00 AM London Close – 4:00 PM	3:00 AM 11:00 AM	8:00 AM 4:00 PM
New York Open – 8:00 AM New York Close – 5:00 PM	8:00 AM 5:00 PM	1:00 PM 10:00 PM

Fall/Winter in the U.S. (October/November – March/April)

LOCAL TIME	EST	GMT
Sydney Open – 7:00 AM Sydney Close  – 4:00 PM	3:00 PM 12:00 AM	8:00 PM 5:00 AM
Tokyo Open – 9:00  AM Tokyo Close – 6:00 PM	7:00 PM 4:00 AM	12:00 AM 9:00 AM
London Open – 8:00 AM London Close – 4:00 PM	3:00 AM 11:00 AM	8:00 AM 4:00 PM
New York Open – 8:00 AM New York Close – 5:00 PM	3:00 AM 11:00 AM	1:00 PM 10:00 PM

The open and close times are based on local office hours, with most office opening hours falling between 7-9 AM local time.

Open and close times are different during the months of October/November and March/April as some countries (like the United States, England, and Australia) shift to and from daylight savings time (DST).

The day of the month that a country shifts to and from DST also varies, and this can get confusing.  Japan, however, keeps it simple because it doesn’t observe daylight savings.

If you are looking at the Sydney Open, you probably would be wondering why it shifts two hours in the Eastern Timezone.

You’d assume 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 have this noted if you ever plan to trade during that season.

Also remember that in between each forex trading session, there is a period of time where two sessions are open simultaneously.

During the summer, from 3:00-4:00 AM ET, for example, the Tokyo session and London session overlap, and during both summer and winter from 8:00 AM-12:00 PM ET, the London session and the New York session overlap.

When two markets are open at the same time, there is more volume, this makes these times the busiest times of the trading day. This is so because, during those times, all the market participants are trading, which means that more money is transferring hands.

Now let’s move on to the average pip movement of the major currency pairs during each forex trading session.

TABLE

PAIR	TOKYO	LONDON	NEWYORK
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

From the table, it is obvious that the London session normally provides the most movement.

You should take note of some currency pairs that have much larger pip movements than others.

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We advise you to open a Demo account for the purpose of this phase of learning.

Click on this LINK to create a HotForex Demo or Live Trading account >>> OPEN ACCOUNT

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