Schedule of trading sessions on Forex, Moscow time

The ForEx currency market (from the English phrase Foreign Exchange) has become one of the most popular ways to make money on the Internet today.
The development of the Internet has opened up access to trading on any platform in the world and allowed anyone who wants to become a currency exchange player without even leaving home. And because Trading sessions on Forex take place 5 days a week, continuously replacing one another, so knowledge of their features and schedule helps traders build the most effective trading strategy.

Types and schedule of trading sessions on Forex

Forex trading sessions Moscow time begin on Monday night, and the first country to open the week is New Zealand.

A little later, Asia, in particular Japan, comes into play, and after them the morning comes to the European part and finally to the USA.

Sites in different countries open at 8 or 9 am local time, so UTC is used for convenience.

We’ll talk more about what UTC is below, but for now let’s look at the table showing the beginning and end of trading sessions.

Trading session schedule table

There is a gap of one hour in the table at the junction of the American and Pacific sessions.

This is explained by the fact that in the USA, in addition to the New York exchange, there is also a Chicago exchange, and it opens an hour later, just as it closes, that is, exactly at the time when trading begins in Sydney.

Similar shifts exist in all regions.

In the Pacific Ocean, the Sydney Exchange opens two hours earlier than the Wellington Exchange.

In Asia, Shanghai and Hong Kong are an hour behind Tokyo, and Singapore is two hours behind.

In Europe, the Moscow exchange begins trading first, and the London exchange begins work an hour later than Zurich and Paris.

Changes to the trading schedule

Trading hours may vary due to holidays such as Christmas, Fourth of July, Labor Day, etc. On some holidays, when markets are closed, there is no trading at all. In other cases, market hours may be staggered.

Justforex always publishes updated trading schedule in the "Our News" section in case of changes in market opening hours. Please follow our news to always stay up to date. We recommend taking changes to your trading schedule into account as you may need to reconsider your trading strategies if, for example, the market is expected to be low in liquidity.

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Features of Forex trading sessions

Chart 1. Schedule of trading sessions on Forex
Why is it so important to know the schedule of trading sessions on Forex?

The fact is that all sessions have their own characteristics, and if your strategy works in Europe, this does not mean that it will show the same results in Asia.

Asian period

A calm session where strong jumps and high volatility are rare.

Most often, during these trading periods, a flat is observed in the market, that is, sideways movement without a pronounced trend.

This is due to the relatively small number of players in the local market and the lack of significant influence of local currencies on the global economy.

The greatest volatility is observed in currency pairs in conjunction with the Japanese Yen, where it becomes the main price driver.

European period

The euro is one of the main currencies on Forex, and during the opening of European exchanges it becomes the main tool of local traders and market makers.

All currency pairs begin to move, and at the moment of opening there is often a so-called gap, that is, a gap in price.

A huge number of investors and market makers are concentrated in Europe, and each pursues its own goal. Trading at this time is extremely volatile, and there are even strategies for breaking through the Asian flat, based on the fact that the first impulse during the opening of the stock exchange sets the price direction for the entire session.

American period

The most unpredictable period, with the greatest volatility. Trading is entering its climax and, more often than not, the trends established by European players are being reversed.

Pacific trade period

The most calm and measured session. Trading takes place mainly in a side corridor, and spikes occur only when news comes out directly related to this region.

The greatest volatility is observed in currency pairs in conjunction with the Australian dollar (AUD) and the New Zealand currency (NZD), but they often do not show good dynamics, since the American dollar and euro constantly exert pressure, even when the sites in these regions are closed.

Where is the best place to trade?

The Forex market has already formed a list of reliable brokers. In terms of trading conditions and the range of tools available for trading, AMarkets is among the best. Here you can work with currency pairs and CFDs on commodities, indices, shares of major companies, and cryptocurrencies.

I will list the main features of the broker:

• The company is a member of The Financial Commission.
• To open a standard account, you need a capital of at least $100/€100/5000 RUB.
• Spread – from 0 for ECN and from 3 points.
• Leverage is 1 to 1000, on ECN it decreases to 1 to 200.
• Trading terminals – 4 and 5 versions of MetaTrader.
• Over 100 trading instruments available.
• Clients are offered auxiliary indicators – Cayman and COT. Other brokers have no analogues.
• Good bonus policy, tournaments are held.

If you are at the stage of choosing a company for your first deposit, I recommend reading the review of the AMarkets broker. Perhaps this is where your search will end.

Open a Forex account in AMarkets

Overlay of trading sessions

Table 1. Schedule of trading sessions on Forex
The times of trading sessions on Forex overlap each other.

The first junction occurs in the Pacific region and Asia, when exchanges in several countries begin to operate simultaneously.

A little later, the Sydney stock exchange closes and a second junction occurs, with the European region. The stock exchanges of Hong Kong and Singapore meet here, and Tokyo closes at the same time as the Moscow exchange opens.

But the junction of Europe and America is of greatest interest to traders. The American Forex session Moscow time begins at 16:00, and around this time European players return from lunch.

Exchange targets in Europe and the United States often differ, which is especially noticeable in the euro/dollar pair.

During the junction, price behavior is most difficult to predict. In addition, important news begins to come out, which means a new surge in volatility and the cancellation of all previous trading signals.

How to use this information in practice?

To properly assess the situation based on Forex trading hours, pay attention to the following recommendations:

• The greatest activity of traders occurs during the European and American sessions, so this is the best time for trading. This is when most trades take place and trading spreads are at their lowest.
• You may also notice that some trading sessions overlap; volatility is usually highest during these hours.
• During the Asian session, the largest number of transactions are made with the Japanese yen.
• During the European session, activity occurs in two periods: 10:00-14:00 and 15:00-19:00.

• Be careful during a thin market - a period when there is not enough liquidity to maintain a stable price chart. Strong impulses are possible.
• On New Year's holidays, large banks and stock exchanges are closed; companies withdraw funds for summing up and reporting. This is a protracted “thin” market where you need to be extremely careful.
• In Forex, a gap may appear after the weekend, so we recommend using Stop Loss and Take Profit or even closing all positions on Friday.

Summer and winter time

European countries and the United States support the transition to summer and winter time.

Asia and Australia, and more recently Russia, do not move their clock hands, so their time is always the same.

Exchange platforms are based on maternity time, that is, local time. It turns out that in the summer the stock exchanges open an hour earlier than in the winter.

In order not to get confused in all these nuances, you can simply use the schedule of Forex trading sessions online.

There are many similar services on the Internet, but the most popular and convenient is probably Stocktime.ru

This is a stock exchange clock with automatic accounting of all time changes. The gadget is conveniently customizable and does not require entering your time zone.

You can also use temporary broker tables. For example, this list is posted on the official website of the Alpari broker:

Table 2. Schedule of trading sessions on Forex in the summer

Table 3. Schedule of trading sessions on Forex in winter

The tables indicate all the time calculation options used, and this is another factor that confuses users, which we will discuss further.

Current currency pairs and average volatility.

Finally, about the Pacific session, I would like to literally abstract your attention to the instruments that are relevant to operate during this 3-hour trading period. Thus, the optimal currency pairs for trading during the Pacific Session are assets that contain the national currency of these two countries. Here are the most liquid of them:

AUD/ USD, NZD/ USD and AUD/ JPY whose volatility is 50-80 points!

What are GMT and UTC and how do they differ?

You probably noticed that different sources mark Forex trading sessions in different ways.

Some use the abbreviation GMT, others UTC. So what is it?

Let's start with a short excursion into history.

In the 19th century, Great Britain faced a serious problem: train timetables.

Trains crossing time zones caused confusion among dispatchers, and so, in 1847, a decision was made to create a single time from which all time zones were based. It is called GMT or Greenwich Mean Time.

Greenwich is a city in England where an observatory is located that observes the stars, and it was the starry sky in those days that was the source of information about our time.

But later astronomers found out that the planet’s motion is not always uniform, and the rotation speed is constantly changing. In particular, 2017 differs in duration from 2021 by 0.002 seconds. For example, I didn't notice this. And you?

Scientists of the 20th century could not tolerate such a discrepancy, and a new scale was adopted, called UTC.

This is the so-called atomic time, that is, more accurate and correct for the inhabitants of our planet. It’s just that it differs from Greenwich by hundredths and thousandths of a second, and such a discrepancy makes sense to be taken into account only in ultra-precise calculations, and you and I don’t even notice it.

So, the main question is: how is GMT different from UTC? The answer is NOTHING!!!

These are two completely identical scales, simply adopted by the scientific community at different times.

Accordingly, the hours of Forex trading sessions can be displayed both in GMT and in UTC, it does not matter.

A little about the Forex market

The over-the-counter Forex market is the most highly capitalized financial market in the world. In 2020, its intraday turnover, according to some estimates, could reach up to 10 trillion. dollars. Please note that these values ​​may not be accurate. Since this, namely the foreign exchange financial market, does not have a single server. Therefore, the management of this site has no obligations or requirements for registration and publication of contracts concluded on it.

Also, the lack of exact values ​​of capital turnover is a consequence of the fact that part of the traded volume is provided by margin trading. Under the terms of which, it is allowed to conclude transactions and contracts for amounts many times greater than the actual capital of the trading participant. That is why a large daily turnover is a guarantee of high liquidity of this market.

But not only the high liquidity of this trading platform attracts investors from all over the world to engage in short-term and long-term investments in all kinds of currency pairs. Currency pairs with precious metals, cryptocurrency pairs and CFD contracts. The main characteristic and distinguishing feature from other trading exchanges is that in the Forex market it is possible to conclude contracts around the clock!

How to Determine Your Broker's Time Zone

Screenshot 1. Where is the server time in the MT4 terminal
Brokers work according to local time, that is, according to the one used in their region.

Because of this, the time in the trading terminal often differs from the time zone of the trader, and, for example, MetaTrader does not allow you to change it.

The easiest way to find out your broker's time is to look at it in the terminal, or search on the official website.

Also, the company's maternity time is displayed in the economic calendar. As a last resort, you can always contact technical support, but you need to know what schedule your broker works on.

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Here, perhaps, I will take this opportunity and make a small remark. The fact is that I have met young people who really believe that America is a state or a country. Guys, America is a continent. The word America, of course, means the US state. But in fact, in America there are countries such as Jamaica, Chile, Mexico, Canada, and the US Virgin Islands. And, in fact, the United States of America (USA) itself. America is a continent, like Europe, Asia, Africa or Australia (ignorance infuriates...).

Trading sessions indicator for MT4

Screenshot 2. Trading sessions indicator on the chart
There are quite a lot of trading sessions indicators for MetaTrader 4.

One of the most famous i-Session

In the settings, you can choose what color to display a specific trading session.

The yellow number in the block is the number of points (4 digits) how much the price moved during this trading session.

The indicator file must be copied to the /MQL/Indicators folder of your terminal

Trade the largest stock exchanges overnight.

Then, after one hour, that is, at 17:00 Moscow time, after the opening of the offices of the giant corporations and the largest New York Stock Exchange, another trading giant joins the game on the Forex platform. Its name is the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Also known under the pseudonym “commodity and raw materials exchange”. Thus, in America, “raw materials find money, and money finds goods”!

What do you think, friends, what happens to quotes when the following trading platforms are involved in trading: London Stock Exchange (LSE), New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and hundreds of other giant transnational corporations. Something is happening here! In other words, all over the world computers and laptops are bursting at the seams, and monitors are melting!

In addition to the above exchanges, during the American session, the following stock exchanges of other countries are also traded: USA - NYSE , CME, AMEX, NASDAQ and NYMEX . Canada - TSE . Toronto - CSE . Montreal - ME . BMV Stock Exchange . Bovespa exchange in Sao Paulo and BVRJ in Rio de Janeiro.

During the entire American session, particularly important and key indices are traded.

• NASDAQ – This is an index of a group of stocks of 5,000 companies. Which are included in the main listing of the exchange of the same name.
• XAX – Index traded on the AMEX exchange and reflecting the dynamics of the prices of shares and depositary receipts of all companies traded on the exchange.
• Dow Jones – This index is one of the largest US indices. It includes securities of companies and organizations in almost all industries. With the exception of utilities and transport industries.
• S&P 500 – One of the most liquid indices of the American market. The S&P 500 is an index of shares of the 500 largest companies and organizations that trade on the NYSE and NASDAQ stock exchanges.
• S&P/TSX – Also, an index with a fairly high capitalization. The securities of this index are traded on the TSE stock exchange, which is located in Canada.
• Mex IPC is a Mexican stock index that includes securities of more than 35 major companies. The securities of these 35 organizations are traded on the BMV Mexican Stock Exchange.
• BOVESPA is a Brazilian index that is based on securities of more than 70 large organizations and enterprises, which are also traded on the Brazilian stock exchange of the same name.

Video on US stock indices