Trading Times in Forex Market by Albert Schmidt
Time of Forex market activity is one of the most important issues for a trader. Successful traders use those time periods wisely. They don't sit in front of their charts for 24 hours a day. If you get tired of staring at price charts you spending too much time at your computer. You need to utilize the market schedule more wisely.
Traders with signs of exhaustion like red eyes are not the ones who make money consistently trading currencies. Successful traders are very well aware when they need to be watching the price charts when they can shut down the computer get away form trading.
It is not realistic to be successful in anything if you are constantly tired. You need to have a fresh clear mind in order to see a trading opportunity make profit. So how should you schedule your time around trading Forex
I have a couple suggestions for you. It is based on my experience. I hope it can help you to schedule your time for trading currencies. I always use US Eastern Time which is GMT 5 therefore you need to make necessary adjustments for your time zone.
Market During Asian Session
Time period from 5 pm until 11 pm is called Asian session. It's time of Japanese traders. In this period the most powerful countries that active are Japan China Australia.
Volatility of the market is not very high at this time period. Biggest European American financial institutions are closed. Therefore the volume is not very high. There is very little price movement. However some important news from Japan can disturb the market create volatility.
You can do scalping trades during this period. However in my opinion it's not worth it. So if you have any open position make sure you placed stop loss order go do something else besides trading in Forex.
The next two hours 11 pm 1 am EST are market's slower time period. Traders in Asia are ready to go home. Probably the best choice to trade during this time would be any currency pair that has Japanese Yen in it for example GBP JPY or EUR JPY.
London Open
Time period from 1 am to 4:30 am one of the most important trading times in Forex. European financial institutions traders are fully active. Usually this time period can set the trend for the rest of the day.
In my opinion European session can be one of the most profitable time periods for traders. However you need to watch market very closely since it can present a good opportunity for a trade as well as a strong move against your position. Also do not forget about economic news releases at this time. Usually the come between 4 am 5 am.
British economic news are usually released between 5 am 6 am EST . Therefore if you are active during this time watch closely the price movement during those releases. Since this is the time of European London sessions the best currency pairs to trade are the ones that have Euro British pound in it.
New York Session
Morning time in New York starting 8 am is the most active time in Forex market. The big players become active at this time. Largest financial institutions investment funds traders can change any direction of the price movement.
Since it the most active time I recommend to trading during this time frame if you are a day trader. Some people trade only during the New York session do very well because big moves happen in this session. Almost all important news are being released at 8:30 am. You want to watch closely this point in time if you don't want to miss a trading opportunity. Around 1 pm 2 pm the market activity slowly fades away.
After 2 pm the activity decreases even more except for the days of Federal Reserve news releases. Usually it happens at 2:15 pm. That may or may not increase the volatility of the currency pairs.
Looking at these time periods you can see that it not necessary to be glued to your charts all day long. There are not many time periods when the market can present you high probability trading opportunities. Therefore most successful traders don't spend to much time trading the currencies.
Albert Schmidt has been in the field of Forex Trading for quite some time by now. He maintains a website about Forex trading learn forex now. info where you can find step by step information on how you can learn to trade Forex lessons. learn forex now. info. Trading Times in Forex Market