Time zone (All pictures temporaritly show UTC time)
Forex market opens on Monday and there will normally be retracements in trends formed on Friday. To those traders who are already at their terminals at that time it is advisable to watch them closely.
Trading becomes more brisk in anticipation of Tokyo trading session opening in an hour. Some traders prefer to take profit of 5-10 pips with transaction to both sides before Tokyo opens.
Trading gets more dynamic. It is worth to check if there are any current corporate relations between Asian investors. If there are ones and you see an investor entering the trade and, say, buying, others will follow suit.
Keep an eye on news and headlines:
Economic Calendar
Trading dynamics grows in anticipation of the opening of the two biggest Chinese markets in 30 minutes: Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Within these 30 minutes time frame or right before the Chinese session starts, Euro usually declines until the very moment of the opening of Shanghai and Hong Kong. But there, of course, can be exceptions from time to time and traders must be careful.
Hong Kong and Shanghai start trading and Euro usually grows for over an hour. After 02:30 am and by the end of Tokyo Session at 06:00 am trading the EUR/USD gets mixed as Asian exporters convert part of their profits both into U.S. Dollars and Euros.
The structure of China’s export is such that the greatest part of products and goods is paid for in dollars. Thus it is logical that China has no need in additional dollars. That is why EUR/USD usually grows during the Chinese session.
China possesses the largest gold and currency reserves on the planet and it is primary lender to the United States. If China is selling some part of its U.S. Dollars, it makes Euro grow.
Pay attention to the actions of the Chinese Markets. If the Chinese buy Euro, then everything is predictable. But if they buy dollars, the whole day might be like a “casino”.
The Sydney session is over and it is the end of the high volatility and liquidity period on Asian-Pacific markets (see Asian - Pacific Overlap).
If Euro has been actively sinking till this hour, China will usually drive Euro up after the Tokyo closes. 06:00 am – 07:00 am is in a manner of speaking the “Chinese hour” on the market. Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore are still open and take matters into their hands causing the growth of Euro.
Asia is an enormous commercial and industrial region with a plenty of inexpensive high quality goods and gigantic finances turnover. It makes the number of transactions on stock exchanges huge during the Asian session. That is why traders, who entered the trade at the opening of the London session, should pay attention to their terminals when Asia exits the market.
Trading ends in Shanghai. This is the last trading hour of Hong Kong session, during which market activity peaks.
London Stock Exchange, FBW Frankfurt, SSE Zurich enter the market and the European - Asian overlap starts. According to our observations Euro selling normally prevails over the first hours of the trade.
Read More:
European Session
Euro surges up either almost immediately or within an hour after Singapore exits the Market. No one is preventing the Europeans from knocking Asian stop-losses now.
10:00 am to 10:30 am or up to 11:30 am – the euro trend (often) changes either within these 30 minutes or it takes 1.5 hour for it to make it.
11:00 am is time when trading has either come to an end (Dubai, Qatar), or will end in an hour (Riyadh) on Middle Eastern oil markets. It is worth noting, because oil trading is performed in U.S. Dollars and the region, with the trading day coming to an end, has no need in the USD. That's why Euro most often grows up.
01:30 pm - 02:30 pm is the time left either to exit all unsafe positions in anticipation of upcoming outrage of the U.S. Core trading session, or to set stop-losses. Euro usually goes down before the U.S. session.
On the Market 24h Clock you see the core trading sessions for equities of NYSE, CHX and TSX (Canada), which start in 1 hour after this Strategic point.
North American Session starts Forex trading at 01:00 pm. See U.S. - European overlap for more details:
U.S. - European overlap
Market Activity Sector for the North American Session:
U.S. Market Activity Sector
Beginning of core trading sessions in New York, Chicago and Toronto*. European Session still overlaps the North American Session and this is the time of large-scale unpredictable trade. The U.S. are leading the market. It is hard to interpret news, because of speculations. Trends develop very quickly and identifying them is difficult. Although, trends (especially for Euro), which have developed during the overlap often change to the opposite when Europe exits the market.
* Market 24h Clock displays four major Stock Exchanges which influence the Forex market the most: New York (NYSE, NASDAQ), Chicago and Toronto Stock Exchanges.
Euro trend changes rapidly after the end of the European session.
Institutional clients and very large funds are highly active over the first and last working hours of almost every stock exchange. They usually analyse a core trading session but make transactions during the mentioned the first and last trading hours. Knowing this allows to better predict price movements at the opening and closing of the large markets.
Market 24h Clock displays core trading sessions (market hours) for NYSE and NASDAQ by default, but as there are extended trading on these exchanges, trading currencies continues. E.g. within the last trading hours of the after-market session you can often see a pullback on EUR/USD continuing up to the opening of the Tokyo session. Generally it happens if there was an upward price movement before 10:00 pm - 11:00 pm.
See also: Market Activity Sector for the last trading hour of the U.S. Last U.S. Hour Market Activity Sector
The end of the current trading day (settelment date). This is the time when Rollovers (Swap Rates) are applied to open positions after 10:00 pm (5PM EST)* change in settlement date.
(*Please, note that time varies with some brokers).
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