Trading Market Hours and The 3 Major Sessions

London Close Charts

To maximize the number of trading opportunities during these Index hours, it is important to be aware of the times when the trading market is busiest. This is the time that most trade activity forms.

Even though there is no official open & close time during the week, it can be broken up in to 3 major Indices sessions - Tokyo, London and New York market sessions.

However, although it seems not to be very important at the start, the correct time to trade is one of the most important points required to be a successful trader.

The best time is when the trading market is most active and therefore has the biggest volume of transactions. A more active market creates a good chance to make some profit while a calm & slow one is literally a waste of your time resource - turn off your Desktop computer PC and don't even bother trading at this time.

Not all the times are suitable, that is because the volatility keeps changing. Below is a guide outlining the schedule of Index Sessions. The time used is GMT 0

The Most Active Trading Market Session Overlaps and The 3 Major Sessions

The 3 major sessions are:

Asian Session Hours( Tokyo ): 00:00 - 9:00 GMT
European Session Hours( London ): 7:00 to 17:00 GMT
U.S. Session Hours( New York ): 13:00 - 22:00 GMT

Index Sessions Overlaps

There are hours when 2 market sessions are overlapped:

London + Tokyo over-lap - 7:00 to 9:00 GMT

New York + London over-lap - 13:00 - 17:00 GMT

At these over-lapping market hours you'll find the highest volume of transactions & therefore more chances to win during these hours.

This means that the lion share of transactions is happening between the London session and US market session. Naturally this is the best time to earn profits.

The prices moves a lot during the New York and London Sessions because Multinational companies, hedge funds, managed funds and banks are open for trading.

Multinationals will transact indices during this time to facilitate international business transactions and commerce, hedge funds and managed funds will trade indices for investment purposes, banks on the other hand will exchange lots of money on behalf of their clients, maybe tourists wanting to travel around the globe or just anybody wanting to exchange money so that to buy something in another country or make some transaction.

This makes the trading market very liquid at this time and the high volume of transactions means that prices move a lot. At this time the charts will in general move in particular direction & form a short-term trend.

As a trader you also want to join in when everyone is placing their orders as this is the time there is enough liquidity & many good opportunities to make money, and because there is a lot of liquidity the price movement will generally be more predictable unlike when there is little liquidity & the price movement becomes unpredictable and the prices can move in a range bound manner with no particular direction.

Once you trade indices for a while you will get to know that is easier to make money when the trading market is moving up or moving down, unlike when it's in a range.

Asian Session Characteristics:

Least volatile of the three market sessions
Account for 15 % of daily transaction turnover
Typical 20 -30 pips moves

European Session Characteristics:

Most volatile of the three market sessions
35 % of daily transaction volume
Typical 90 -150 pip moves

USA Session Characteristics:

2nd most volatile of the 3 sessions
Accounts for 25% of daily turnover
Focuses on USA economic news

US & Europe Market Session Overlaps Characteristics:

Combines the two most volatile trading sessions
Accounts for 60 % of the total daily transaction turnover
Focuses on USA & European economic news
Fast moving prices and trends in a particular direction

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