The four major forex sessions
The forex market runs 24 hours a day, five days a week, because trading passes around the globe through four regional sessions. As one financial centre winds down, the next opens, so there is almost always a market open between the Sydney open on Monday morning and the New York close on Friday evening.
- Sydney opens the trading week and sets the early tone in the Asia-Pacific region.
- Tokyo brings the bulk of Asian liquidity, with yen crosses and regional pairs most active.
- London is the largest session by volume and overlaps the tail of Tokyo and the start of New York.
- New York drives the Americas session and reacts to US data and the Wall Street open.
Why session overlaps matter
The busiest, most liquid window of the day is the London–New York overlap, when both of the world’s largest financial centres are trading at once. Spreads are typically at their tightest and price moves at their fastest during this window, which is why it draws the most attention from active traders. The Tokyo–London overlap is a smaller but still notable pickup in activity earlier in the day.
Knowing which sessions are open helps you understand why a market is quiet or busy at a given hour — it is context, not a trading signal. This page shows the live state of each session and adjusts automatically for daylight saving wherever you are.
A note on daylight saving
Session start and end times are shown in each centre’s local business hours, which stay constant year-round. Their equivalent in UTC shifts by an hour when London, New York or Sydney move on or off daylight saving — the clock above accounts for this automatically using your browser’s timezone data.