One of the greatest features of the foreign exchange market is that it is open 24 hours a day. This allows investors from around the world to trade during normal business hours, after work or even in the middle of the night. However, not all times are created equal. Although there is always a market for this most liquid of asset classes, there are times when price action is consistently volatile and periods when it is muted. What’s more, different currency pairs exhibit varying activity over certain times of the trading day due to the general demographic of those market participants that are online at the time. In this article, we will cover the major trading sessions, explore what kind of market activity can be expected over the different periods and show how this knowledge can be adapted into a trading plan.

Breaking A 24-Hour Market Into Manageable Trading Sessions
While a 24-hour market offers a considerable advantage for many institutional and individual traders because it guarantees liquidity and the opportunity to trade at any conceivable time, it also has its drawbacks. Although currencies can be traded any time, a trader can only monitor a position for so long. This means that there will be times of missed opportunities, or worse, when a jump in volatility will lead the spot to move against an established position when the trader isn’t around. To minimize this risk, a trader needs to be aware of when the market is typically volatile and decide what times are best for his or her strategy and trading style.

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