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Currency trading in the foreign exchange (FOREX) market takes place 24 hours a day Sunday evening to Friday evening. In this respect, it differs from most financial markets, including the equity markets for stocks. There are different trading sessions spread across various geographical time zones that predominate at certain times of the day.
Tokyo Session
This session is regarded as the first session of the day. Basically, just remember that the sun rises in the east and then moves west. Japan, of course, is in the Eastern Hemisphere of the world. This session is also alternatively referred to as the Asian Session. The time for this session is from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m. EST. From 3 a.m. to 4 a.m., it overlaps with the London session. Overall, it has the lowest volume of trading compared with the other two sessions.
London Session
Again, following the directional movement of the sun (yes, I know its really the earth that moves), London is east of the USA, so that it becomes the second session of the day. This session produces the most activity of all. The hours of this session run from 3 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST. It overlaps for a period of 4 hours with the New York Session. The London Session is sometimes called the European Session. Many traders love to trade the opening of this session due to the fact that it provides the greatest volume and activity of all the sessions, creating tremendous liquidity.
New York Session
While the New York Session is the last session of the day, by no means is it boring. During the early hours it is concurrently open with the London Session, the highest overall volume of trading takes place. The hours are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST. This session is extremely important, due to New York being a major financial center of the world and many banks, domestic and foreign branches, are located there. Even the economic calendars tend to list news events according to New York or Eastern Standard Time.
With the three major sessions operating in tandem to cover all 24 hours in a day, many trading opportunities exist. That is not to say that all of the hours have equal potential from a profit standpoint. In fact, there are times which are almost always better for trading in than others. If you want to know the absolute best regular hours for trading, then try trading on Tuesday and Wednesday between the hours of 3 and 4 a.m. EST and from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. EST.