Market Hours and The 3 Major XAUUSD Trading Sessions

Tokyo Close Charts

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

Even though there is no official open & close time during the week, it can be broken up into 3 major XAUUSD Trading market sessions - Tokyo, London and New York market sessions.

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

The best time is when the market is most active and thence has the biggest volume of transactions. A more active market creates a good chance to make some profit while a calm and slow one is literally a waste of your time - turn off your computer PC & do not even bother trading at this time.

Not all the times are suitable, that is because the volatility keeps changing. Below is a guide outlining the schedule of XAUUSD Sessions. The time used is GMT 0

XAU USD Session Time - Best Session to Trade XAUUSD - Gold Session Times - Gold Times

The three major sessions are:

Asia Session Hours( Tokyo ): 00:00 - 9:00 GMT
Europe Session Hours( London ): 7:00 to 17:00 GMT
U.S. Market Session Hours( New York ): 13:00 - 22:00 GMT

Best Times

There are hours when 2 market sessions are overlapped:

London + Tokyo over-lap - 7:00 - 9:00 GMT

New York + London overlap - 13:00 - 17:00 GMT

At these overlapping market hours you'll find the highest volume of xauusd transactions & thence more chances to win during these hours.

This means that the lion share of xauusd transactions is happening between the London session and US sessions. Naturally this is the best time to make profits.

The trading prices moves a lot during the New York and London Market Sessions because Multinational companies, hedge funds, managed funds & banks are open for trading.

Multinationals will transact xauusd during this time to facilitate international business transactions and commerce, hedge funds and managed funds will trade xauusd for investment purposes, banks on the other hand will exchange lots of money on behalf of their clients, maybe for 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 a transaction.

This makes the market very liquid at this time and the high volume of transactions means that prices move a lot. At this time the charts will in general move in particular direction and form a shortterm trend.

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

Once you trade for a while you will get to know that is easier to make money when the market is moving up or moving down, unlike when it is in a range.

Asian Session Characteristics:

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

European Market Session Characteristics:

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

USA Session Characteristics:

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

US & Europe Session Over-laps Characteristics:

Combines the two most volatile market sessions
Accounts for 60% of the total daily trade transaction turnover
Focuses on USAUS and European economic news
Fast moving trading prices and xauusd instrument trends in a particular direction
Typical 100 -150 pip moves for major xauusd

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