How the forex trading day works
The currency market has no central exchange, so it trades around the clock from Monday morning in Asia-Pacific to Friday evening in New York. Activity follows the business day across four main centres: Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York. Each session has its own character, and the hours where two sessions overlap usually bring the most volume and the tightest spreads.
How to read the clock
The tool shows the current time in your time zone and whether each session is open or closed, with a countdown to its next open or close. The timeline maps today's 24 hours in your local time: each session's hours, the overlaps highlighted and a marker for now. It refreshes every 30 seconds.
Session hours are defined in each city's own local time — Sydney 07:00–16:00, Tokyo 09:00–18:00, London 08:00–17:00 and New York 08:00–17:00 — and then converted to your time zone, so daylight saving time is handled automatically. Saturdays and Sundays are shown as closed.
The four sessions
- Sydney opens the week. Liquidity is thinner, and AUD and NZD pairs are the most active.
- Tokyo brings yen, Australian dollar and wider Asian flows. Ranges are often moderate, though Japanese data and central-bank news can move yen pairs sharply.
- London is the largest centre by turnover. Many breakouts and trend moves start in its first hours, and EUR, GBP and CHF pairs are at their most liquid.
- New York overlaps with London for several hours, then volume fades into the afternoon. US data released at 08:30 New York time is a frequent source of volatility.
Overlaps and daylight saving
The London–New York overlap is usually the busiest window of the day: about four hours for most of the year, from 13:00 to 17:00 London time. Because the US and the UK change their clocks on different dates in March and in October–November, the overlap runs an hour longer for a few weeks each year. The Sydney–Tokyo overlap is longer but quieter, and Tokyo–London overlaps for one or two hours depending on the season. Sydney's own daylight saving runs from October to April, shifting its hours in the opposite direction to Europe and North America.
Worked example
For a trader in Paris on a weekday in November: London is open from 09:00 to 18:00 local time and New York from 14:00 to 23:00, so the overlap runs from 14:00 to 18:00 Paris time. Tokyo runs from 01:00 to 10:00, overlapping London between 09:00 and 10:00. Sydney runs from 21:00 the previous evening to 06:00.
Common mistakes
- Trading the quiet hours. The period after New York closes and before Tokyo is fully active is often thin, with wider spreads.
- Forgetting holidays. A bank holiday in one centre reduces its liquidity even when the clock says open.
- Ignoring the weekend gap. Prices can open on Monday away from Friday's close, and positions held over the weekend carry that risk.
- Assuming fixed UTC times. Daylight saving changes shift the sessions by an hour relative to one another twice a year.
Planning a London-session breakout? Pair the clock with the pivot point calculator to mark the day's levels before the open.