It can be hard to remember which Forex trading market is open right now. Even if you primarily stay in the same timezone, it can be easy to forget when each market opens and closes.
When you are traveling, it can be especially hard to keep track…until you get used to the timezone.
The best way to get an accurate look at which market is currently open, is to use a Forex market hours clock. This short post will give you the one that I like best and some background on each session.
Be sure to bookmark this blog post so you can find it easily later. I won't list specific times because that just confuses people (myself included).
This is much easier…
Live Forex Market Hours Clock
This is the live Forex market hours clock. Set your current timezone and the clock will show you which market is currently open.
I have used quite a few of these clocks and I like the Oanda market hours indicator best. This graphical representation is the easiest one for me to use and I hope you like it too.
Now let's take a quick look at each session and how you should treat each one. There are slight nuances that you have to be aware of.
Here is a breakdown of the Trading Sessions
It is important to understand which market is open because of the amount of trading that happens during each session. The more trading activity there is, the more price will move. Here is a screenshot of the historical trading volume that is associated with each session.
This screenshot comes from the Oanda Forex market hours widget. Keep in mind that this is not a live graph. Use the graph above, if you want to change your timezone.
Sydney
The Sydney market is the smallest and “opens” the trading day. Although the markets are open 24 hours, trading volume drops off significantly when the New York session closes.
You should generally avoid entering trades during this time, because the market is less likely to move and price action can be choppy. Trading during this time can be like watching grass grow.
Tokyo
When the Asian trading markets open, there is a slight bump in trading activity, but still not enough to warrant entering trades on most pairs. The USDJPY can be active during this time, so if you like to trade that pair, you should keep an eye out during this time.
But otherwise, other pairs will usually be range bound and not really worth looking at. Also keep in mind that spreads may increase during this time and it might cost you more to enter/exit a trade.
London
Now this is when the action starts. Trading will increase across all pairs and this is when it is worth entering trades.
There are several trading strategies that revolve around trading the Tokyo session breakout. Although there is a lot of trading happening during this session, the best is yet to come.
New York
Finally, we get to the New York session. The overlap between the Asian session and the New York session has the most trading volume during the trading day.
This is when you can see big price runs and nice tradable price action. But this also means that you have to cut your losses faster. Don't forget the stop losses!
Conclusion
So that is the easy way to instantly tell which Forex trading market is currently open. Be sure to bookmark this page so you will have it, if you forget.
Do you still have any questions about FX trading hours? Let us know in the comments below and we will do our best to answer them.
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