The Forex Market is a truly global 24 hour marketplace. There are several financial centres that participate in the forex market. The main ones are New Zealand, Australia, Japan, London and Wall Street.
All these financial centers operate during normal trading hours in their country. For example Tokyo begins trading at 7pm and closes at 3am (EST Timezone). London operates 3am-11am EST. As soon as Tokyo closes, London opens!
When trading currencies it is very import to know the individual trading sessions. The Forex trading times for the main financial centers are as follows:
Forex Trading Hours
Australia: 5pm - 1 am
Tokyo: 7 pm - 3 am
Singapore/Hong Kong: 9 pm - 5 am
Frankfurt: 2 am - 10 am
London: 3 am - 11 am
All the above times are using the EST timezone (Eastern Standard Time)
Typically the Tokyo trading session is one of the quietest. If you check historical charts for this trading session, you will see that on many occasions there is very little movement. Some traders exercise their scalping strategies during this period.
When exercising your forex trading strategy, it can be very important to fully understand the different trading sessions and the trading times of these sessions. The amount of volume and volatility can vary greatly between the different sessions.
A good example of this would be, a typical Tokyo session is generally likely to be much quieter than a US session on non-farm payroll day.
However, if you have a very long term forex strategy, where you have individual positions open for many weeks or months, the daily trading hours will not be anywhere near as significant to your trading.
A good example of this would be, a typical Tokyo session is generally likely to be much quieter than a US session on non-farm payroll day.
In conclusion, the forex trading times may or not be important to your trading strategy. Either way it is important to learn the trading hours of each session so you have a better idea of when the market will move.