The best time to trade Forex? Trading Hours and Sessions | FTMO - YouTube

Hello Traders, in this video, we will take a look at Forex trading hours and sessions.

Forex is a unique market, not only because of its high liquidity, and size.

But also because it is traded 24 hours a day 5 days a week.

Because of that, traders can trade at any time of the day that suits them and their

schedule.

Doesn't matter if you are an early bird or you like to stay long awake during the nights.

One thing is certain, a Forex market will be opened at all times.

Just not at weekends.

But there is a little catch.

Although you can trade at any time you want, there are certain nuances and characteristics

for different times of the day.

To not cause any confusion.

All the times, that we will mention in this video, we are going to base on London time

with GMT+0.

That would be Coordinated Universal Time for your recalculation of your current time zone.

It is the same for example as you travel from Asia to Europe.

You need to know what time is there and how many hours you have to add or subtract on

your watches.

Every week on Sunday, the Forex market opens at 9PM London time, which makes the start

of the Sydney session.

Two hours later at midnight, the Tokyo session starts at 11pm.

To ease things up we can merge these together and call them an Asian session.

The Asian session ends at 7am and at the same time, the London session starts.

There is a Frankfurt and London session with Frankfurt starting at 7AM and London starting

at 8AM.

But once again to make things easier, we are going to just call it a London session.

At 1pm New York session starts and it goes alongside a London session until 4pm.

This is called the London / New York overlap and it usually brings a lot of trading opportunities.

As there is the highest volume traded during those hours.

After London closes at 4pm, the New York session runs till 9pm, and once it is closed.

Asian session starts again and the whole cycle repeats.

As time changes during the year, there are also slight changes to trading hours, so you

should always keep up with what's going on.

The Asian session has the lowest volume from 3 trading sessions.

But this doesn't mean that you cannot find any opportunities there.

Besides traders that live in Asia, this trading session can also attract European

traders who like to trade during the night or Americans that just got home from work

and want to spend late afternoon trading.

The Asian session is mostly controlled by the Japanese economy.

Which is the third biggest in the world.

And also the Japanese yen is the third most traded currency with around 17% of all transactions

During the Asian session, around 20% of the daily volume is traded.

Besides Japan, you have countries such as Singapore, New Zealand, or Australia which

participate in the market.

Because of that, currency pairs such as AUD/JPY, AUD/NZD, or NZD/JPY are the best ones to trade.

Macroeconomic releases from New Zealand, Australia, and Japan also cause high volatility which

every trader should pay attention to.

London was always one of the most important business centers in the world due to its strategic

place between Europe and America.

Nowadays, London is one of the main financial hubs in the world.

At the forex market, the London session makes over 30% of traded volume alone.

One of the key reasons to trade during the London session is the fact that you can trade

both European and American macroeconomics releases which bring a great amount of volatility

to the markets.

Thanks to high liquidity, traders can benefit from very low spreads that are also optimal

for scalpers and day traders.

Since the London session is the first high liquid session of the day, a lot of new trends

are forming during the London Open.

Markets usually move right after the open and slow down during the London lunch hours

as large participants take small breaks before New York kicks in.

During the London session, not only are major currencies moving, but we often see high volatility

in minors as well.

The currency pair Euro/GBP, GBP/JPY are both extremely popular crosses that offer high

volatility and plenty of trading opportunities.

New York session is the last trading session for the given day.

Same as London and Tokyo, the US session is called New York because of the city's importance

as the financial hub of the world.

Because over 95% of the traded volume contains the US dollar, there is no wonder that the

New York session brings a great amount of volatility every day.

Also, most of the key fundamental events happen during the NY session.

Namely, these can be the Non-Farm Payrolls - NFP, Federal Open Market Committee - FOMC,

Employment rates or Consumer Price Indexes - CPI.

New York session slows down around London Close at 4pm but even after that, you can

find opportunities in the market.

Although once the London session is finished, money usually flows to the US index market

such as S&P500, Dow-Jones, or NASDAQ.

Same as the London session, the New York session offers tight spreads and good conditions for

intraday trading.

Now that we covered separate sessions, let's have a look at different days of the week.

Markets open on Sunday evening London time, but there is usually a very small volume during

that day.

Monday morning also tends to be slow until the New York session starts and markets really

start to pick up.

Tuesday usually offers double the volatility of Monday, and it makes it one of the best

days to trade during the week with Wednesday and Thursday.

Fridays are interesting days as they have lower volumes but there are also a lot of

macroeconomic events during Friday.

For example, NFP which is every first Friday of the month can offer a lot of opportunities

but some traders prefer to skip those completely, as markets tend to be less predictable during

these events.

After London closes on Friday, volumes usually dry up.

Besides currency pairs, a lot of brokers offer CFDs for indices and commodities to trade

as well.

For equity indices, they differ based on the country they are from.

European indices such as DAX or Stoxx open at 1am and trade until 9pm London time.

US indices such as S&P500, NASDAQ, or Dow-Jones trade 23 hours a day with a break between

10 and 11pm.

But for US indices we have something that is called a pit session.

The name of pit sessions comes from trading pits and it represents the time period from

2:30pm till market close.

These are hours where US traders are awake and it brings large amounts of volumes to

the market.

Commodities such as Crude oil and Gold trade 23hours a day with the highest volume during

the US session due to trading in the futures market.

All right traders.

I hope you have enjoyed this video and if you have any question or if you have

not understand something or you are just interested in something.

Just let your comment down below.

Please do not forget to subscribe to our YT channel

and I wish you a steady study and see you next time.