This document discusses currency trading sessions and which currency pairs are best to trade during each session. It outlines the key players and features of the Pacific, Asian, European, and American trading sessions. The Pacific session runs from 20:00-07:00 UTC and involves Australia and New Zealand. The Asian session runs from 23:00-09:00 UTC and involves China, Japan, and Singapore. The European session runs from 07:00-17:00 UTC and involves major European countries. The American session runs from 13:00-23:00 UTC and primarily involves the United States and Canada. It provides volatility information for each session and recommends popular currency pairs to trade.

1. Forex Trading Sessions –
When and What Pair is Better
to Trade

2. It is very important to consider the time of
a day while trading, at different times,
different currency pairs are liquid, the
volatility is different as well and trading
style changes from calm to aggressive.

3. The trading session
is a period of carrying
out of transactions
between market
participants from the
same time zone.

4. Forex trading hours

5. The Forex market is available 24 hours a
day. This is due to the fact that banks and
merchants are working in different time
zones, so that when in one end of the
planet trading is closing, in the other –
traders are just kicking into action.

6. The Forex market never sleeps, except weekends and
holidays. After a break at the weekend, there is a sharp
change in prices. It is possible to predict its direction
while analyzing the news on Friday and at the weekend.
Although the time before the market closing and then
opening on Monday is considered to be the riskiest and
the most unpredictable due to price gaps. There is even
such a term as the trading on gaps.

7. There are such trading sessions on Forex:
● Pacific 20:00 – 07:00 UTC;
● Asian 23:00 – 09:00 UTC;
● European 7:00 – 17:00 UTC;
● American 13:00 – 23:00 UTC.
Exchanges work schedule is defined by the UTC time – Coordinated
Universal Time (world time), which determines the time of all time
zones.

8. GMT is a Greenwich time that is
determined by the daily movement
of the stars. A UTC time is determined
by the atomic clock. So, the
astronomical time trails atomic by nearly
the whole 1 second! Scientists have
decided that life can’t be such anymore
and took UTC for the official measure
of time in the world. But in fact,
GMT and UTC are synonyms.

9. Pacific session

10. Key players:
Australia (Australian Dollar AUD).
Sydney Stock Exchange.
New Zealand (New Zealand Dollar NZD).
Wellington Market.

11. Features:
It opens market after
the weekend and its name speaks
for itself. This is the quiet time on the
market, trading “calm”. Activity on the
market is created by stock exchanges,
banks of New Zealand and Australia. Due
to the small volume of financial flows, this
session is often attached to the Asian one.

12. Features:
Pairs with AUD are enough
liquid, take active
participation in trading,
especially when there is the
imposition of the Asian
session.

13. Asian session

14. Key players:
China (Yuan CNY). Hong Kong Stock Exchange,
Shanghai Stock Exchange. China is an economic
superb country and news from this country have a
serious impact on the market.
Japan (Yen JPY). Tokyo Stock Exchange – the financial
center of Asia, one of the world’s leading financial centers.
Export companies and central banks are trading. Japan is
the third largest currency trading by volume.
Singapore is a financial hot spot.
The share of the Asian session from the total transactions in the currency market is 21%.

15. Features:
During the Asian session trading is
calm. Majors liquidity is low. This
session “heats” traders and affects
their decisions in the next European
session. For example, the EUR/USD
pair made a breakthrough during the
Asian session, so the movement is
likely to continue during the
European session.

16. Features:
The economies of Japan and China are export-oriented, so a large
number of trading companies buy and sell currencies.
Consequently, the trading volume is impressive.

17. Features:
The Japanese Yen is among
the three most traded
currencies on the Forex,
covering 16.5% of all market
transactions.

18. Features:
The largest price activity will be
observed in the AUD and pairs
with JPY after the release of
economic news from China.

19. Volatility during Asian session:

20. European Session

21. Key players:
Switzerland (Swiss Franc CHF). Zurich Stock Exchange is one of the
largest European trading platforms. The Swiss economy is the most
stable in the world.
Britain (British Pound Sterling GBP). London Stock Exchange is the
world trade center, where 30% of all forex transactions take place.
Germany (Euro EUR). Frankfurt Stock Exchange is one of the
world’s largest stock exchange, Germany is a leader in terms of
GDP.
France (Euro EUR). Paris Bourse is the largest exchange in Europe.
According to the total volume of the economy, France is the second
in the European Union (after Germany).

22. Features:
Most price trends start with the
trading session in London and
usually continue until the beginning
of the American trading session.

23. Features:
The European session overlaps with two
other sessions. Therefore trading is rapid,
the volatility and liquidity of pairs are high.
By the middle of the day transactions are
executed less active. But in the afternoon the
American session is overlaid and the activity
increases again.

24. Features:
The European session,
especially during overlaying
hours, is for traders who
prefer the adrenaline.

25. You can trade with the following pairs:
● majors: EUR/USD, USD/CAD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY and
USD/CHF – the average volatility range is more than 80
points for all these pairs. High volatility provides a
good opportunity to enter the market;
● crosses: NZD/USD, AUD/USD, EUR/CHF and AUD/JPY
– they are less risky. You can trade based on
fundamental economic factors.

26. Volatility during European session:

27. American session

28. Key players:
Canada (Canadian Dollar CAD).
Toronto Stock Exchange.
United States (US Dollar USD). New York and
Chicago Stock Exchanges. New York is one
of the world’s major financial centers, the
New York Stock Exchange is 19% of the total
turnover on the Forex market.

29. Features:
The most important news,
fundamental data and events
take place during this trading
session, which leads to high
liquidity on the market.

30. Features:
In the first half of the day trading is more
active, as the European session overlaps.
Americans are speculating aggressively, the
trend is moving in an unpredictable direction,
making futile attempts to focus on the news.

31. Features:
After lunch and before the trading opening in Japan, the number of
transactions and the pairs volatility falls below that favors dubious
operations of major players of the New York Stock Exchange.

32. During the overlap of the American
and European session, one can trade
any currency pair, as liquidity is very
high. It is better to trade majors and
crosses, exotic pairs are not popular.
Features:

33. On Friday evening, US
traders prefer to fix
profits before the
weekend and major
trends can observe a
pullback.
Features:

34. American session volatility:

35. Services, widgets,
applications for
monitoring trading
sessions

36. There are various services and applications to keep track of the trading sessions. They help
traders to get the lay of the land the situation and optimize the transactions due to the market
situation.
For example, there is a widget on JustForex website that shows which exchanges are
operating at the moment, time of the opening and closing of the rest ones.
In order not to bother with the calculations and always be aware of what is happening on the
stock exchange, install the application of exchange hours on your phone. Just type in the
search of Google Play or App Store. Here are the most popular ones:
In App Store:
1. Forex Trading Hours Free;
2. Market 24h Clock.
In Google Play:
1. Forex hours;
2. FXhours;
3. Market Zone.

37. There are also special helpers for a trading platform. You can download a free indicator for
MetaTrader 4 – trading hours indicators.
The indicator of trading sessions shows the start and end of the three trading sessions:
Asian, European and American.
Sessions are displayed by background rectangles. The length of the rectangle corresponds
to the duration of the trading session, and height – to the trading range. For the current
trading day, there is an opportunity to show the extreme prices of each session.
In order not to get lost in the maelstrom of information on the trading sessions, we have
created a cheat sheet in a form of infographics, which contains working hours and liquid
currency pairs for each session. You can find it here.

38. Thank you for
watching
the presentation!