Trading Market Hours and The 3 Major Gold Sessions

Tokyo Close Charts

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

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

However, although it seems not to be very crucial 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 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 time - turn off your Desktop computer PC and don't even bother gold trading at this time.

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

The Most Active Trading Market Overlaps - The 3 Major Gold Sessions - New York - London - Tokyo Market Sessions

The three major market sessions are:

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

Best Trade Times

There are hours when 2 sessions are overlapped:

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

New York + London over-lap - 13:00 - 17:00 GMT

At these over-lapping market hours you will find the highest volume of trading transactions & therefore more chances to win during these hours.

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

The gold 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 gold during this time to facilitate international business transactions and commerce, hedge funds and managed funds will trade gold for investment purposes, banks on the other hand will exchange lots of money on behalf of their clients, maybe tourists wanting to travel around the world or just anyone wanting to exchange their money so as to buy something in another country or make a 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 charts will generally move in particular direction and form a short-term 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 earn money, and because there is a lot of liquidity the xauusd trading price movement will generally be more predictable unlike when there's little liquidity and the gold trading price movement becomes unpredictable and the xauusd trading prices can move in a range bound/ranging manner with no particular direction.

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

Asia Session Characteristics:

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

European Session Characteristics:

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

US Market Session Characteristics:

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

US & Europe Session Overlaps Characteristics:

Combines the two most volatile market sessions
Accounts for 60 % of the total daily trade transaction turnover
Focuses on US & European economic/fundamental news
Fast moving gold trading prices and gold trends in a particular direction

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