Best Trading Time

As you will probably know by now, Forex markets are open for trading 24 hours per day, 6 days per week. This means that regardless of what time zone you are in, you will be able to place buy and sell orders in an open market - even if you are trading part time after work.

However, it should be noted that just because the market is open, doesn't necessarily mean that the market will be particularly active all the time.

There are definitely times when the market is more volatile, active, and exciting than other times.

Major Trading Time Zones

The major trading time zones on the Forex markets are the times when the major financial centres are open. These financial centres comprise the following countries / regions:

  • Asia (Japan / Hong Kong / China)
  • Europe (London / Eurozone)
  • Americas (New York / Brazil / Canada)

These are the three major market time periods, and something you may have noticed is that they all follow on from each other in the order they are listed. In other words, as the Asian market closes, the European market is opening. As the European market closes, the American market is half way through its trading day. And so on and so forth.

Always Open

As you can see from the explanation above, the Forex market is always open, and is usually always subject to a major trading time zone. However, there are still periods when particular currency pairs are busier than others.

One classic example of this is the difference between the USD/JPY currency pair and the EUR/USD currency pair. Obviously, the JPY is the Japanese Yen - which is heavily traded during the Asian session. However, whilst the USD/JPY is still able to be traded during the European and American sessions, the trading volume is significantly lower because the Asian market is closed.

Hence - whilst EUR/USD activity will be high at this time, the USD/JPY activity will be lower. The opposite is true when Asia is open and the European and American markets are closed.

You can use this fact to your advantage to take more or less risks during particular sessions. For example - if you are a risk adverse trader, you might like to trade currency pairs only when their respective markets are closed - therefore implying that there will be less risk during the quieter times.