With each twenty-four period in the FX market offering different waves of trading volume, when in the trading day are currency markets most active?
Best time to trade currencies: When are markets most active?
Source: OANDA, 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2024. Average half-hourly trade volume as a percentage of daily total. All timings are in NYC time. Calculations made using U.S. centric trading data. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Best time to trade currencies: Market activity & volume insights
With each twenty-four-hour period in the forex market boasting an average trading volume of over $7.5 trillion as of 2022¹ and likely to have increased substantially since, forex remains statistically the largest and most liquid financial market globally*.
But when during each trading day are FX markets typically highest in volume and most active?
Courtesy of the OANDA data team, we collected and analysed over 70,000 data points across six different currency pairs to answer this question — here’s what we found out.
Over 37% of daily trading volume happens during the London-New York overlap
Although it accounts for only 19% of the trading day, the London-New York overlap boasts a staggering 37% of average daily trading volume, with some currency pairs seeing an even higher proportion of daily volume happening during this time.
| London-New York trade volume as % of daily total | |
|---|---|
| USD/CAD | 45% |
| EUR/USD | 41% |
| GBP/USD | 38% |
| AUD/USD | 34% |
| NZD/USD | 32% |
| USD/JPY | 30% |
While the overlap of the two sessions sees many traders from both regions active simultaneously, many economic data releases also help boost market volatility, often occurring during the early stages of the London-New York crossover.
Trading volume is at its highest between 08:30 am – 09:00 am
Within the typical trading day, volume is highest between 08:30 am and 09:00 am.
During this time, 7% of daily trading volume enters the market, even though the half-hour period only accounts for 2% of the trading day.
Given that the London-New York overlap is the most active part of the trading day, here’s how volume compares across the period:
Source: OANDA, 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2024. Average half-hourly trade volume as a percentage of daily total. All timings are in NYC time. Calculations made using U.S. centric trading data. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
33% of USD/JPY trading volume happens during the Tokyo session
On the average trading day, USD/JPY typically sees an increase in trading activity during the Tokyo session, where approximately ⅓ of daily trade volume enters the market.
Enjoying a ‘second wind’ of trade volume following New York trading hours, the same pattern can be seen with other currencies of a similar time zone, like AUD/USD and NZD/USD.
| Tokyo session trade volume as % of daily total | |
|---|---|
| USD/JPY | 33% |
| AUD/USD | 32% |
| NZD/USD | 32% |
| USD/CAD | 21% |
| EUR/USD | 17% |
| GBP/USD | 16% |
However, currency pairs like EUR/USD, with currencies exclusively from Europe or America, generally experience a higher percentage of their daily trade volume during London and New York sessions, with only a small increase in volume at the onset of the Tokyo session.
Other key takeaways
- Discounting overlap between sessions, the London session sees the highest level of trade volume, followed by New York, Sydney and Tokyo sessions respectively.
- Trading volume is typically at its lowest between 17:00 PM and 18:00 PM
Footnotes
All calculations for this analysis use US-centric trading data and NYC time. May not account for daylight savings in some fringe cases.
Where applicable, percentages have been rounded to the nearest integer.
Source: OANDA, 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2024. Average half-hourly trade volume as a percentage of daily total, AUD/USD, EUR/USD, GBP/USD, NZD/USD, USD/CAD, USD/JPY.
*Retail traders do not have access to the interbank market.
¹BIS 2022 Triennial Central Bank Survey, OTC foreign exchange turnover in April 2022
This article and its contents are intended for educational purposes only and should not be considered trading advice.
