The forex market has no central building and no opening bell. Banks, dealers, and brokers around the world trade currencies directly with each other. To describe the rhythm of that activity, people use four session names that follow the working day of four financial centres: Sydney, Tokyo, London, and New York.
The four sessions on this site
Each session is stored with its own timezone, so daylight saving is handled correctly. The hours below are the ones this site uses, in the local time of each centre, on weekdays:
- Sydney: 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM Sydney time. The first session of the week and the main window for Australian and New Zealand currencies.
- Tokyo: 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Tokyo time. The main Asian window, especially for yen pairs. It is not the same as the Tokyo Stock Exchange cash session.
- London: 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM London time. Widely considered the deepest session, which is why its start and end matter to many participants.
- New York: 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Eastern Time. It closes the trading day, and the next Sydney morning is already starting as it does.
Other sources use slightly different hours, and that is normal. The names describe when a region is active, not a rule set. Read the session index to see the live status of each one.
How the baton is passed
Reading the sessions in time order gives a continuous chain. Sydney opens first, Tokyo opens a few hours later, London opens as Tokyo winds down, and New York opens while London is still active. When New York closes, it is already close to the next Sydney morning. The weekly chain starts on Sunday evening in New York and ends on Friday evening, as described in the Sunday forex open guide.
The three overlaps
When two sessions are both in their regular hours, they overlap, and those periods are tracked as their own pages:
- Sydney and Tokyo: a window of several hours that changes length as Sydney moves between daylight and standard time.
- Tokyo and London: short, because Tokyo is closing as London opens. It also shifts with London's clock changes.
- London and New York: the longest of the three and, historically, a period of elevated volume. See the London-New York overlap.
Overlaps matter because more participants are active at the same time. This is described as typically higher liquidity, which is a general tendency and not a forecast.
Why the overlaps move during the year
Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States each change their clocks on different dates. Japan does not change at all. The overlaps are therefore not fixed in UTC. They slide by an hour at various points in the year, and for a few weeks in spring and autumn the London-New York overlap grows by an hour because the US and Europe are out of step. The clock gap guide lists the exact dates.
Using the names sensibly
A session name tells you which region is likely to be most active, which helps when you pick a time to check a pair. It does not tell you what prices will do. Forex sessions are a way of describing when people are awake and working, nothing more.
Hours on this site are for reference only. Verify with your broker before trading.