Forex is a market openned 24h/24, from Sunday night to Friday night for individuals. During the day, there are periods with more liquidity and more volatility. These periods are better to trade on Forex. During these periods, several markets are openned in the same time.

There are three big sessions and two overlap periods (CET hours)

Asia  01:00 - 10:00

Europe  08:00 - 18:00

US 14:00 - 23:00

Overlap Period Asia / Europe:  08:00 - 10:00

Overlap Period Europe / US: 14:00 - 18:00

It is therefore advisable to trade during these overlap periods. However, everything depends on your trading method. Indeed, a scalper seeks significant volatility while a trader playing trends seek to avoid periods of high volatility. It will therefore avoid periods of recovery.

A day on the Forex has several sessions. These sessions are in agreement with GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) of London - or with EST ( 'Eastern Standard Time') of New York, which is GMT-5.

If you are on the west coast of the United States then you must use PST ( 'Pacific Standard Time') which is GMT-8.

In France, the trading hours in winter time for Paris is GMT +1 and GMT +2 in summer time

This tool will allow you to know the time everwhere on the world map :

Here is a chart that showing in detail the various places and hours of cotations:

The most conducive time to trade a particular parity also differ depending on the currency processed. Thus, to trade the EUR / USD or GBP / USD, the best time is between 14pm and 17pm. These parities will be more volatil.Indeed, during this time period, most economic indicators on the dollar will be published. In parallel, it is also the first hours of quotations of New York.

However, to trade the AUD or JPY, you should wait between 1am and 7am. Indeed, economic indicators of the parities involved will occur during the night. Moreover, from 1am, places of Sydney and Tokyo open, then Singapore at 3am. Of course, these currencies may be handled throughout the day but it is during these time period that there will be more movement on the parities concerned.

Because of hours of overlap that may exist between different places, the most suitable hours to trade each parity can be different. Thus, to trade, the EUR / USD or GBP / USD it is between 14 pm and 17 pm that there will be more movement. To trade AUD or YEN, you should wait between 3am and 7am. Of course, these currencies may be handled throughout the day but it is during these overlap periods that there will be more movement on the parities concerned.

It should be noted that between 9am and 17pm the majority of transactions are made, Paris, London and New York being the most important places in terms of transaction volume as shown by the graphic below which represent the total distribution of the global volume of transaction in 2007 :