What are the best forex trading hours? Find out when to trade on the forex market to get profitable trading results!

Do you want to know which are the best times to trade forex? Watch our latest video to find out which are the best forex trading hours to get profitable results.

The best forex trading hours – a simple, but effective guide

Welcome to the video, and this is looking at the best time of day to trade the foreign exchange markets. Now, the foreign exchange market is obviously a 24 hours, five days a week market. So, it’s open constantly, during those days, and obviously, because the foreign exchange market crosses the whole world, different countries are trading the financial markets at different times. So, there clearly are better times to trade than others. Now, the general rule is the best time of day to trade is when you’ve got the most market participants around because this helps with volatility, it helps to make price move. It also helps in terms of getting your orders filled and the spreads that your broker will offer. There’s certain times when your broker will offer you much larger, wider, spreads. It has not only to do with the currency pair you’re trading. Obviously, the more exotic currency pair, the higher the spread, but it has also to do with the time of day you’re trading. The more traders, the more orders, the more competitive the spreads are, so let’s have a look.

Okay, so let’s look from March/April to October/November. Now, there’s two different time zones you could look at, really. Not time zones, there’s two different parts of the year firstly. You need to look March-April to October-November, because many countries have daylight saving time, so they adjust their hours to allow for more daylight during the day, it’s more practical for people to live. So, this is looking, first of all, March-April to October-November. I’m making this video in July, so that’s why it’s the first one I’ve started with. So, here’s the major sessions. You’ve got Sydney, and I’m going to do this in GMT time, opens 9:00 o’clock GMT time, closes 6:00 o’clock GMT, that’s 7 a.m. British Summer Time. You’ve got the Tokyo session, opens midnight GMT, closes 9 a.m. GMT. You’ve got the London session, and that opens 7:00 o’clock GMT, closing at 3:00 o’clock GMT, that’s correct, because it’s 8:00 o’clock British Summer Time, 4:00 o’clock British Summer Time. And then, New York session, which is 12:00 o’clock GMT through to 9:00 o’clock GMT. Now, obviously, this is British Summer Time, which is GMT+1. This is GMT and this is Eastern Standard Time. So you should be able to work out your time zone from those three.

The best time of day to trade, look, it’s where the sessions overlap. Tokyo-London and London-New York, there’s a little bit of overlap from New York to Sydney, and arguably the Sydney – Tokyo – London session that sort of overlap there. There is a little bit before London, but some guys are getting to their desks early. So, they’re the two good times of day to trade, especially intra-day. So, if you’re looking at getting intra-day move, you see a little setup that comes on the 50-minute chart and you see it’s looking really good. And there you are, 7:00 o’clock GMT. Well, that’s probably two hours, you’ll probably be done. This happens to me very regularly, I go down to the charts, I get up at 6:00 o’clock British Summer Time, I spend the first hour analyzing the markets, and sometimes, if I see a little intra-day setup, I’ll put it on and usually, by the time I’ve had my breakfast, come back to my desk, trade’s done, so good little time there, I like it.

Again, and then this is October-November through to March-April and there’s obviously no British Summer Time because the time in Britain, where I’m from, reverts back to GMT. So, again, you can see the time when the markets are overlapping. London – New York, Tokyo – London. Now, I will just say something, and it’s this. It’s I often notice, like, although technically you see that the Tokyo-London session overlap here for this little hour, okay? And for the moment you get more of an overlap. But I just noticed that if you’re in a couple of hours before, so as I said, I place in my chair about 7:00 a.m., that’s a very good time, by the time you get to your desks, between  8:00 and 9:00 a.m., sometimes a big chunk of a move is gone. So, I would say, look, start looking at… Well, I get to my desk at 6:00 a.m. and I think I get a little edge there because, by the time I’ve done my analysis, it’s 7 a.m., I know where I’m going and sometimes I can get into a move early. So, I would just say, “Look, this is a good time.” A little tip, that’s just an experiential tip, I haven’t got any evidence to show, that’s just what I’ve noticed and I often think, “Yeah well, I’m glad I’m in there because I got that move early.”

And the other thing to mention, of course, is when the London traders go out for lunch and when the New York traders are getting into their desk, although technically that is an overlap, it can be a little lull time. Because you’ll see like if a move has been made in the London session, London traders take that profit and price can retrace. So if you’re in profit, a decent move around 12:00 o’clock GMT, just take it off the table, especially if it’s an intra-day chart, because the London traders may be taking their profits so they can say, “I’ve put profit before lunch.” It’s not much more relaxing, isn’t it, to go out to lunch saying “I’m 0.3% up in the account, I go to my lunch.” So, be aware of that. Fridays, be aware, that traders will be taking profit at the end of the week. Again, you want to put profit for the week, so you take your profit so you can see price reverse and retrace. So, just be wary of taking any trades into a Friday close. It’s not really to be recommended at all when you’re going to be hit with wider spreads at the end of the session as well. So, be aware of that. So, it’s not only times of day, it’s also times of the week. Obviously, the Sunday open price is a lot more volatile, you’re going to hit wider spreads and things are going to move for no apparent reason. Just because there’s a lack of orders, so the price moves around a lot more quickly.

Guys, I hope that helps. I’ve done these little slides for you to help you visualize. You can take a screenshot of these, print them out. I just quickly jotted them together myself. Hope that helps and just tells you a little bit more about best times of day to trade. Cheers guys, bye.