There are 3 major sessions each day in the forex markets. They are the Asian Session,mthe London session, and the US session.
The Asian Session
The Asian session is a reasonable quiet session on most days. All pairs are pretty slow moving and it is not a good time to day trade. The only real currency that has noteworthy activity is the JPY and the activity is slow unless a major financial event happens.
When liquidity is restored to the forex market after the weekend passes, the Asian markets are naturally the first to see action. Unofficially, activity from this part of the world is represented by the Tokyo capital markets, which are live from midnight to 6am Greenwich Mean Time. However, there are many other countries with considerable pull that are present during this period including China, Australia, New Zealand and Russia, among others. Considering how scattered these markets are, it stands to reason that the beginning and end of the Asian session are stretched beyond the standard Tokyo hours. Allowing for these different markets' activity, Asian hours are often considered to run between 11pm and 8am GMT.
The London Session
The London session starts around 8:00 GMT and winds down around 1600 GMT. The currencies that are the most active during these hours are EUR, GBP, and USD.
Later in the trading day, just before the Asian trading hours come to a close, the European session takes over in keeping the currency market active. This forex time zone is very dense and includes a number of major financial markets that could stand in as the symbolic capital. However, London ultimately takes the honors in defining the parameters for the European session. Official business hours in London run between 7:30am and 3:30pm GMT. Once again though, this trading period is expanded due to other capital markets' presence (including Germany and France) before the official open in the U.K.; while the end of the session is pushed back as volatility holds until the London fix after the close.
The US Session
The US session starts around 1300 GMT and winds down around 22:00 GMT. The currencies that are the most active during these hours are AUD, EUR, GBP, JPY, and USD.
By the time the North American session comes on line, the Asian markets have already been closed for a number of hours, but the day is only half through for European traders. The Western session is dominated by activity in the U.S. with few contributions from Canada, Mexico and a number of countries in South America. As such, it comes as little surprise that activity in New York City marks the high in volatility and participation for the session. Taking into account the early activity in financial futures, commodity trading and the concentration of economic releases the North American hours unofficially begin at noon GMT. With a considerable gap between the close of the U.S. markets and open of the Asian trading, a lull in liquidity sets the close of New York exchange trading at 22:00 GMT as the North American session close.
