The four centres
Sydney opens the week, Tokyo follows, then London, then New York. Each keeps roughly nine business hours in its own time zone, and because those zones are spread around the world there is always at least one open between Sunday evening and Friday evening, New York time.
Why sessions matter to you
Not because one is better, but because your currency’s home market and its economic releases fall inside particular hours. Trading the euro while Europe is asleep means trading it when the people who move it are not at their desks.
The overlap
London and New York are both open for about four hours each afternoon, London time. Two of the largest centres quoting at once means tighter spreads, and most United States data lands during it while Europe is still trading.
Daylight saving moves everything
Sydney, London and New York all change their clocks, on different dates, and Tokyo never does. Any session table written as fixed hours is wrong for part of the year, which is why the clock on this site computes them live instead.
In short
| Sydney | 07:00 – 16:00 local |
|---|---|
| Tokyo | 09:00 – 18:00 local, no daylight saving |
| London | 08:00 – 17:00 local |
| New York | 08:00 – 17:00 local |
Common questions
Which session is best to trade?
That depends on your pair, your strategy and when you can actually be at the screen, and no honest answer exists in the abstract. What the journal on this site does is record the session of each trade and break the results down by it, so the question becomes a measurement about you.
Can I trade at any hour?
Between Sunday 17:00 and Friday 17:00 New York time, yes. Whether it is sensible depends on the instrument: spreads widen in thin hours and a stop that survives London can be triggered by noise at 3am.
Is the market open on weekends?
Retail forex is not. Crypto is. That difference matters for anything held over a weekend.
Trading forex and CFDs on margin carries a high level of risk. Most retail accounts lose money. Nothing on this page is financial advice or a recommendation to trade.