Gold Trading Market Hours and the 3 Major Gold Trading Sessions

The online Gold trading market is a 24 hours Market: it opens on Sunday night (5 PM EST) and closes on Friday afternoon (4PM EST) - open 5 & a half days a week.

However, even though the gold market is open 24 hours a day, as a xauusd trader you need to realize that certain times of day are more suitable than others in trading XAUUSD in order to devise an effective & time efficient XAUUSD trading strategy.

To maximize the number of trading opportunities during these market hours, it's important to be aware of the times when the online trading market is busiest. This is the time that most financial transactions activity occurs.

Even though there is no official open & close time during the week, the market trading day can be broken up in to 3 major sessions - Tokyo, London and New York market sessions.

However, although it seems not to be very important at the beginning, the right time to trade is one of the most crucial points required to be a successful trader.

The best time to trade Gold is when the market is most active and thence has the biggest volume of financial transactions. A more active online market creates a good chance to make some profit while a calm & slow market is literally a waste of time - turn off your computer PC during this time and don't even bother trading XAUUSD at this time.

Not all the market times are suitable, that is because the volatility changes too much during the 24 hours market cycle. Below is a table outlining the schedule of the Trading Sessions. The time used is GMT 0.

XAUUSD Trading Market Hours and the 3 Major Gold Trading Sessions - XAUUSD Gold Trading Market Sessions

Online Financial Market Hours

These are the busiest trading times in trading financial instruments because these are the times when the major financial institutions and major banks in these cities are open for business. Because of major financial transactions carried out by these major financial institutions the online trading markets also becomes very busy because of this huge turnover of trades.

As a xauusd trader trading during this time is the best option because there is a lot of movement in the price of financial instruments.

The three major trading sessions are:

Asia Market Session Hours (Tokyo): 00:00 - 9:00 GMT

European Session Hours (London): 7:00 - 17:00 GMT

U.S. Market Session Hours (New York): 13:00 - 22:00 GMT

Market Sessions Overlaps - Best Trading Times

There are hours when two sessions are overlapped:

London + Tokyo overlap - 7:00 - 9:00 GMTNew York + London overlap - 13:00 - 17:00 GMT

At these overlapping market hours you'll find the highest volume of financial transactions and thence more chances to make winning trades during these hours.

For example, the XAUUSD pair would give good trading results between 13:00 - 17:00 GMT when two market sessions of Europe & USA are open.

This means that the lion share of financial transactions is happening between the London session and US sessions. Naturally this is the best time to earn profits trading the online gold markets.

The Gold prices moves a lot during the New York and London Sessions because Multinational corporations, hedge funds, managed funds & banks are open for trading financial instruments such as XAUUSD metal, currencies & CFDs.

Multinationals will transact currencies during this time to facilitate international business transactions and commerce, hedge funds and managed funds will trade currencies, Gold metal, Oil and CFDs for investment purposes, banks on the other hand will exchange a lot of money on behalf of their clients, and also trade financial instruments such as currencies, Gold metal, Oil and CFDs for investment purposes or for speculative purposes.

Banks also will transact currency transactions on behalf of tourists wanting to travel around the world or just anybody wanting to exchange their money so that to purchase something in another country or make some international transaction.

This makes the online market very liquid at this time and the high volume of financial transactions means that Gold prices move a lot. At this time the XAUUSD prices will generally move in particular direction & form a shortterm trend.

As a trader you also want to join in and trade when everyone is placing their orders because this is the time there is enough liquidity & many good opportunities to make money trading XAUUSD, & because there is a lot of liquidity the market movement will generally be more predictable unlike when there's little liquidity and the price movement becomes unpredictable & the prices can move in a range bound with no particular direction.

Once you trade XAUUSD for a while you'll get to know that is easier to make money when the market is moving up or heading down when there's a trend, unlike when it is in a range. The market is likely to be trending during the busiest market times - which makes these times the best times for trading XAUUSD.

Asian Session Characteristics:

Least volatile of the three sessions
Account for 15 % of daily transaction turnover
Typical 20 -30 pip moves

European Session Characteristics:

Most volatile of the three sessions
35 % of daily transaction volume
Typical 90 -150 pip moves

US Market Session Characteristics:

2nd most volatile of the three sessions
Accounts for 25 % of daily turnover
Focuses on USA economic news

US and Europe Session Over-laps Characteristics:

Combines the two most volatile market sessions

Accounts for 60 % of total daily financial transactions turnover

Focuses on USA & European economic news

Fast moving XAUUSD prices & XAUUSD pair trends in a particular direction

Typical 100 - 150 pip moves for major Gold pair

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