The Forex market is open 24 hours a day 5 days a week. This provides traders the opportunity to place trades at any time of the day or night. As we cannot all stay up 24 hours a day to trade Forex there are certain hours of the day where the market is relatively quiet.

The best time to trade the Forex market is when there is plenty of action and a large volume of trades, during these times currencies make their big moves providing the Forex trader with opportunities to profit.

There are several major Forex trading sessions, these are; New York, London, Sydney and Tokyo. The biggest currency moves and volume generally occur when two of these markets overlap.

The Forex Trading Hours are therefore (in EST);
New York / London – 8:00 am – 12:00 noon
Sydney / Tokyo – 7:00 pm – 2:00 am
London / Tokyo – 3:00 am – 4:00 am

The most active currency pairs in these hours are as follows;
New York/London
- EUR/USD
- USD/CHF
- GBP/USD
Tokyo/Sydney
- EUR/JPY
- AUD/USD
- USD/JPY
- AUD/JPY

Using this information you can determine which currency pairs should be traded for each trading session to maximize your chance of finding profitable trades.

The most active days for trading Forex are: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The Sunday opening and Monday are generally low volume days as traders are using the time to analyze the market and determine strategies for the coming week. Friday can also be a low volume day with most trading completed before noon, as traders close positions and knock-off for the weekend.