Characteristics of the 3 Major Trading Sessions: Forex Gold Market Open Time: Gold Trading Hours UK, New York Gold Trading Hours

Asian Session

During the Asian session only 8 percentage% of total daily financial transactions go through Tokyo desks. This is the least active of the 3 major sessions. Most of this 8% only involves yen based currency pairs with very little transactions happening for other financial instruments such as GOLD. This is the reason why it is not suitable to trade Gold during this period. Not trading this period will save you a lot of time & money.

European Session

The London/European session takes the majority share of the total financial transactions, 34 % of all financial transactions are carried out during this European session. London time zone is also well placed in terms of business hours for both eastern & western economies, this is when there are market session overlaps & this results in high number of financial transactions during the this period. This time is most liquid and most volatile market session for all the currency pairs as well as Gold.

Europe timezone also includes the euro zone member countries. The Euro zone has 17 members & major banks of these countries are open and there a lot of liquidity as many financial transactions are being executed.

US Market Session

The US market session takes up 20 % of all financial transactions. The most active time for trading is approximately from 8 am to 12 pm GMT when both London and New York dealing desks are open. This is when there generally the highest volatility as it's also when the majority of the major US economic announcements are released.

European & America Sessions Overlap

Although the online exchange trading market is open 24 hours a day during the week, there are periods which have a greater volume of trade positions, thereby increasing the opportunities to make a profit.

For day traders trading Gold online the most productive hours are the London and the USA market session overlaps and this is the peak for financial transactions - when these two market sessions overlap when there is a large volume of financial transactions and the market is most active. During this overlap a significant amount of fundamental news is released generating a lot of volatility and the XAUUSD prices move fast and there plenty of opportunities to trade, this over-lap offers the best opportunity for those wanting to maximize profit.

The best hours for trading XAUUSD, are during this overlap because the XAUUSD prices really move & the moves are decisive & offer the best chance to earn profits.

This also is why Asia traders, like the Japanese will wait until afternoon to start executing their trade orders; this is the period that will coincide with the London and US sessions.

Asian investors won't open trades during the Asian time, henceforth as a trader from anywhere in the world it is best stay away also, after all even the hedge funds & other pro investors from Asia will avoid this time & wait until afternoon to trade when it is much easier because of the liquidity during the US and UK session overlaps.

Therefore to come up with the best hours based on these three sessions is illustrated below:

Forex Gold Open Time XAUUSD Starting Time - Forex Gold Session Trading Gold Forex Market Open Time & Gold Trading Best Time

New York Session Gold vs XAUUSD London Market Session vs XAUUSD Asia Market Session - Trading Gold in NY Session, Gold in UK Session, Gold in Asia Session

The chart above shows the timetable of when each market session starts & when it ends. The chart also shows when there are session overlaps & also shows the best hours to trade Gold and other trading instruments based on these overlaps.

Summary:

Determine Your XAUUSD Trading Schedule

The type of Gold trader that you are determines your trading schedule. If you don't have a lot of time then a longer term XAUUSD trading strategy would suit you best. If on the other hand you have a lot of time then you might decide to set a intra-day trading schedule where you open trades during the most active market hours. The above chart shows the best GMT times to be in the market - from around 800 GMT & 1800 GMT.

Determine Your Timeframe

To set up a trading schedule you need to determine your chart timeframe that you will be trading with. Try using different chart timeframes til you find the most suitable to use in accordance with your trading schedule.

Test Your Gold Trading Strategy

Test your trading strategy on a practice demo trade account for a period of time. Keep track of every trade and monitor the progress of your trading schedule. Try to analyze what times are most profitable for your Gold trade strategy.

Your trading strategy should be specified on the Gold trading plan which you use.

To learn more about how to specify your strategy in your trading plan, read the lesson about writing a Gold trading plan. This lesson will show you an example of a format which you can use to specify your trading schedule.

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