The international currency market operates 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, excluding public holidays when all banks are closed. In each time zone there are establishments, selling or buying currency during their working hours. Thus in fact, we can hardly single out a daily trading session on Forex, however, we can distinguish weekly trading.
Conditionally, Forex is divided into four regional markets: Australia, Asia, Europe and America. During the working day Forex activity is gradually moving from one financial center to another. The uniqueness of Forex trading sessions lies in the fact that when one continent falls asleep, the other one wakes up, in this way the currency market is functioning 24 hours a day.
Find out the table of trading sessions on Forex (MSK):
|
Area |
City |
Summer time |
Winter time |
|
Australia, Oceania |
Wellington, Sydney |
0:00 – 08:00 01:00 – 09:00 |
00:00 – 08:00 01:00 – 09:00 |
|
Asia |
Tokyo Singapore Hong Kong |
04:00 – 12:00 04:00 – 12:00 05:00 – 13:00 |
03:00 – 11:00 04:00 – 12:00 04:00 – 12:00 |
|
Europe |
Frankfurt Zürich Paris London
|
09:00 – 17:00 09:00 – 17:00 09:00 – 17:00 10:00 – 18:00 |
09:00 – 17:00 09:00 – 17:00 09:00 – 17:00 10:00 – 18:00 |
|
United States |
New York Chicago |
16:00 – 24:00 17:00 – 01:00 |
16:00 – 24:00 17:00 – 01:00 |
In fact, trading on Forex continues even on weekends and public holidays, for example, during New Year holidays the trading goes on between banks of Muslim countries, where January 1 is not celebrated.
Unofficially, Forex is working even on weekends, however, the market activity is very low then.
In order to achieve better efficiency in trading, and to plan trading rationally, you have to understand accurately the way the market operates, which means to know when the rates start their movement, when trading sessions open, when the market activity is expected to be low.
Regional markets have peculiarities regarding activity during the day:
Far East
During trading session in Asia the following deals are the most active ones: USD vs JPY, USD vs EUR, EUR vs USD, and USD vs AUD. The currency rates' volatility is insignificant, however, sometimes the activity of currency pairs, especially of USDJPY is at its peak. More often the dynamics is significant, when the Bank of Japan carries out currency market interventions. During the trading session in the Far East it is night or morning in Moscow. Before noon it is possible to work with Tokyo in Moscow, after noon – with Singapore.
Western Europe
At 10:00 MSK, the market starts operating in the financial centers of Northern Europe – Zürich, Frankfurt am Main, Paris and Luxembourg.
However, strong movement of the U.S. dollar versus other currencies starts after 11:00 MSK, when London opens. As a rule, you can observe high activity for 3-4 hours, and then dealers of the European banks leave for lunch break and activity lowers slightly.
North America
Trading gets lively when the session starts in New York (16:00 MSK). American banks open and traders from Europe return after lunch. Around 20:00 MSK the European market closes, then the American banks are able to cause abrupt fluctuations of the U.S. dollar rate versus other currencies.
All in all, the sessions in the United States and in Asia are the most aggressive ones, however, the largest volume of operations is conducted during the European trading session.
The trading sessions in New Zealand and Australia are considered as the calmest ones.
