Gold Market Hours and The 3 Major XAUUSD Trading Sessions

Tokyo Close Charts

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

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

The best time is when the xauusd market is most active and therefore 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 time - turn off your computer and don't even bother trading xauusd at this time.

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

The 3 major sessions are:

1. Asian Session Hours( Tokyo ): 00:00 - 9:00 GMT
2. European Session Hours( London ): 7:00 - 17:00 GMT
3. U.S. Session Hours( New York ): 13:00 - 22:00 GMT

Best Trading Times

There are hours when two sessions are overlapped:

London + Tokyo overlap - 7:00 - 9:00 GMT

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

At these overlapping market hours you will find the highest volume of xauusd transactions and therefore 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 xauusd prices moves a lot during the New York and London Sessions because Multinational companies, hedge funds, managed funds and banks are open for transacting.

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 a lot of money on behalf of their clients, maybe tourists wanting to travel around the globe or just anyone wanting to exchange money so as to buy something in another country or make some transaction.

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

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

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

Asian Session Characteristics:

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

European Session Characteristics:

1. Most volatile of the three sessions
2. 35% of daily transaction volume
3. Typical 90 -150 pip moves

US Session Characteristics:

1. 2nd most volatile of the three sessions
2. Accounts for 25% of daily turnover
3. Focuses on US economic news

US and Europe Session Overlaps Characteristics:

1. Combines the two most volatile trading sessions
2. Accounts for 60% of total daily transaction turnover
3. Focuses on USA and European economic news
4. Fast moving xauusd prices and xauusd instrument trends in a particular direction
5. Typical 100 -150 pip moves for major xauusd