Forex Market Hours: The secrets of first hour


Forex market is 24 hours market, covering all continent’s trading sessions. For this particular reason, it is widely popular among major traders, because it enables them to trade anytime during the weekdays. But there is a catch, not all currency pairs stay active or provide a good trading opportunity throughout the day.

Market volatility varies currency to currency & with stock exchange regional location, opening hour & closing hour. Therefore below we will cover 4 major market session & also its subparts to understand, what is the right time to trade different currency pairs or timing trade for better results.

What are Different Forex Sessions?

Forex session is the timing when the major stock exchange opens & operates. During those market hours, the maximum money transactions take place, thus volatility increases for that specific currency.

For example, in the time of the Tokyo session, most of the Japanese trader make the transaction with the Japanese Yen as the currency. Thus, JPY or Japanese Yen trade volume increases indicating higher volatility.

There are 4 Majors market hours in foreign exchange as we all know,

Major Forex Market Hours:

  • Sydney Session.
  • Tokyo Session.
  • London Session.
  • New York Session.

Sydney Session is when the Australian stock market opens. Tokyo Session is when Japanese Stock exchanges open. London Session is when UK Stock Market Opens, lastly New York Session is when the US stock market opens.

Among these 4 sessions, London Session is the most vital one, maximum forex transaction takes place during the London session. There are lots of traders who trade London breakout during this session. Not to mention, daily highs & lows get formed during this session too. We will explain that later on.

Another reason why forex market hour is important because all the major news get released during these timing.


Sessional Subparts:

There is also a subpart of these sessions, for example, European session can be divided into Frankfurt session & London session. US session can be divided into New York session & Chicago session. These sessions are also moderately bear importance. Mostly for correction & re-entry.

Strategy: The first hour

The first forex market hour of each session is very important. Most of the intraday tops & bottoms forms around those timing so if you pick a good sweet spot, then you can earn a profit with less risk.

trade with forex market hours
Forex session, market structure in metatrader

Above picture is showing the last 4 trading days with whole intraday price structure of EURAUD 5 minutes chart.

In this chart,

  • blue = Sydney session
  • yellow = Tokyo session
  • green = London session
  • red = Newyork session

We have marked, the intraday tops & bottoms, also the breakout & correction points, during the first hour of these sessions.

Example 1:

Another one example with GBPJPY (Pound vs Yen):

forex market session GBPJPY
Forex market hours with GBPJPY

See, during the start of the London session market created day top, the same way notice the start of the US session, trade volume also increased.

Now we can see how accurate is it. At least 80% of the time, it works clockwise.

Backtest

Moreover, we did a test with 5800+ days of data from 1999 to 2018 on GBPUSD Day High & Low timing, test results show average & median of High Low timing around 11:00,11:30,12:00,12:30 with GMT+3, which is basically the timing of London session.

But it does not mean that for all days, for all currency pairs, it will work the same. Someday GBPUSD performs well during London session, someday it doesn’t, stays flat. For someday, USDCAD is good during US session with the news release, someday it’s in a range or under fluctuating moves.

For this reason, you need to check daily news release schedule & find out which currency will be active during your selected session & plan your trade accordingly.

Indicator used in this strategy for demonstration:

Otherwise, you can use our online forex market hour tool, which automatically converts forex market sessions into your local time zone.

Ending Words:

For day traders, forex session is a very essential factor. Whereas position traders who hold their trade for more than 2-3 days, sessional timing is minor. They mostly are concerned with pricing & the direction where their trade is heading. Unlike for day traders, timing factor is crucial, as trade ends within the same day. Therefore, understanding how each session works, one should study the price pattern, during those major sessional opening hours.

Day trading Strategies

Find out our top day trading strategies, to enhance the quality of your trading. Join the disscusion and share your views.

Trading Risk 2%: Why Old school forex method is better

Trading Risk 2%: Why Old school forex method is better

How much a trader should risk per trade, is a crucial factor in terms of trade money management system. The most common myth spreads all over the web or told by the majority of the pro traders is risking only 2% or less per trade. Although some traders might disagree with it. Among them, legendary […]

Gannalyst Professional 5.0 Free Download

Gannalyst Professional 5.0 Free Download

Gannalyst software was developed by Bill Veoten back in 2000. It was popular among W.D. Gann traders. A trader can use .csv data, .pnr or text files to upload data into the software to plot chart. The software has almost all the available W.D. Gann indicator which is customizable with different scale inputs. Gannalyst is […]

How To Trade With WD Gann Grid Indicator

How To Trade With WD Gann Grid Indicator

WD Gann Grid tool is the most demanding indicator used on Metatrader trading platform by professional traders. Although Metatrader has a free Gann Grid drawing tool, unfortunately, it is not up to the mark with the original method of WD Gann master charts. There are very fewer resources available for the traders to understand, the […]

Latest posts

Check all recently updated & newly posted forex articles, forex trade analysis, MetaTrader indicator manual update.

Contact | INTRAQUOTES

Contact | INTRAQUOTES

Last updated on March 21, 2023

Top New IPO 2023

Last updated on March 6, 2023

0 0 votes
Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x