Trading Session Overlaps

Also take notice that in between each forex trading session, there is a period of time where two sessions are open at the same time.

For example, during the summer, from 3:00-4:00 AM ET, the Tokyo session and London session overlap

And during both summer and winter from 8:00 AM-12:00 PM ET, the London session and the New York session overlap.

Naturally, these are the busiest times during the trading day because there is more volume when two markets are open at the same time.

This makes sense because, during those times, all the market participants are wheelin’ and dealin’, which means that more money is transferring hands.

Now let’s take a look at the average pip movement of the major currency pairs during each forex trading session.

PAIR	TOKYO	LONDON	NEW YORK
EUR/USD	76	114	92
GBP/USD	92	127	99
USD/JPY	51	66	59
AUD/USD	77	83	81
NZD/USD	62	72	70
USD/CAD	57	96	96
USD/CHF	67	102	83
EUR/JPY	102	129	107
GBP/JPY	118	151	132
AUD/JPY	98	107	103
EUR/GBP	78	61	47
EUR/CHF	79	109	84

From the table, you will see that the London session normally provides the most movement.

Notice how some currency pairs have much larger pip movements than others.

To see the average pip movement for specific currency pairs in real-time, you can use our MarketMilk™ tool.

For example, here’s the volatility per hour for EUR/USD filtered by London and NY sessions:

Let’s take a more in-depth look at each of the sessions, as well as those periods when the sessions overlap.