The four forex sessions
| Session | Local hours | Often most active |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | 07:00 to 16:00 Sydney time | AUD and NZD pairs |
| Tokyo | 09:00 to 18:00 Tokyo time | JPY pairs, AUD/JPY |
| London | 08:00 to 17:00 London time | EUR, GBP and CHF pairs, gold |
| New York | 08:00 to 17:00 New York time | USD and CAD pairs, gold |
Session hours are conventions rather than official opening times: trading never stops between Sunday and Friday, and banks and brokers in each centre keep slightly different hours.
Session overlaps
- London and New York overlap for about four hours each weekday. This is usually the busiest window for EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/CHF and gold, and when many US economic releases come out.
- Tokyo and London overlap briefly in the European morning, which often moves EUR/JPY and GBP/JPY.
- Sydney and Tokyo overlap through the Asian morning, when AUD/JPY and NZD/JPY see their most activity.
Market hours and expert advisors
Many EAs only trade during the sessions they were built for, through a time filter in their settings. Those filters usually use your broker's server time, not your local time, so convert carefully, and remember that daylight saving changes shift the sessions. An EA only trades while its terminal is running; our VPS guide explains how to keep it online. Gold traders will find more on session behaviour in our gold trading guide.