Forex Tradng Hours, News Release Info, and Currency Pairs
In Forex there are trading hours that are more volatile than other trading hours.
Some Expert Advisors are built for high volatility trading, and others trade better in lower volatility.
Ed's EA's will trade in high or low volatility, but higher volatility is always more risky especially if you are using larger lots sizes and using any martingale inputs which come with some of Ed's EA's (the martingale inputs are optional and increase the lot size from trade to trade until take profit is hit ot the martingale orders limit expires. )
Some of my EA's have time settings and days of the week choices so you can choose when you want the EA's to trade or not to trade.
Following is general info about trading hours and currency pairs etc.
Forex Trading Hours
The Forex market action kicks off when Wellington, New Zealand, the first financial center west of the international dateline, opens on Monday morning local time. (This is usually a slow trading time until the Toyko session starts 2 hours later).
Depending on whether daylight savings time is in effect in your own time zone, the Forex market opening roughly corresponds to Sunday 5 pm (17:00 GMT) in New York, or Sunday night 10 pm (22:00 GMT) in London when it is 8 am in Wellington, New Zealand.
During the next 8 hours or so most trading will be coming from Australia and Asia.
But more trading will start to trickle in from Eastern Europe (Greece, Switzerland, Germany etc., etc., etc.) as each country approaches 8 am local time.
When the London session opens trading starts accelerating even more.
And when the US session opens at 8 am local time, and overlaps with the London session, the most active trading hours are present until about 11:30 am or noon New York time.
And when the New York session stops at 5 pm (17:00 GMT), trading will start again in Wellington, New Zealand where it is now 8 am the next day.
Thus this cycle repeats throughout the week, but trading volatility can vary depending on news releases, or whether there is a holiday in a specific country or region.
It is not necessary to stay awake trying to trade in Forex 24 hours a day. During some hours there is little movement in the Forex market.
The Forex market closes when it is Friday 5 pm (17:00 GMT) in New York .
At this time your MT4 data feed will stop and won't restart until 5 pm Sunday New York time when it is 8 am in Wellington, New Zealand.
(I use GMT in 24 hour display (13:00, 14:00 etc.) because the data feed in MT4 is set up with a 24 hour display.)
The following key will help you understand Greenwich Mean Time (GMT):
London = GMT 0(during standard time, but GMT +1 during DST or BST - British Summer Time).
New York = GMT -5 (Standard time), -4 (Daylight Savings time).
Tokyo = GMT +9 for both Standard and Daylight Savings time.
Sydney = GMT +11 (Standard time), +10 (Daylight Savings time).
HotForex and FinFX are both at GMT +2 during standard time. So, for example, if you have one of my EA's loaded on a chart and want it to trade only the first few hours of the London session, and your broker's MT4 price feed is at GMT +2, then you would set the EA to start at 10:00 your broker's MT4 time which will be 08:00 London time.
(See the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) website for looking up local GMT time.)
Forex market Trade Times (Standard time in winter)
Sydney trade times (GMT +11) = 08:00 - 17:00 (8 am - 5 pm) or 21:00 - 06:00 GMT
Tokyo trade times (GMT +9) = 08:00 - 17:00 (8 am - 5 pm) or 23:00 - 08.00 GMT
London trade times (GMT) = 08:00 GMT - 17:00 GMT (8 am - 5 pm)
New York trade times (GMT -5) = 08:00 - 17:00 (8 am - 5 pm) or 13:00 GMT - 22:00 GMT
Forex market Trade Times (DST - Daylight savings time in Summer)
US moves to DST first, and then 2 weeks later Europe moves to BST (British Summer Time). So London becomes GMT + 1 during BST.
Sydney trade times (GMT +10) = 08:00 - 17:00 (8 am - 5 pm) or 22:00 GMT - 07:00 GMT
Tokyo trade times (GMT +9) = 08:00 - 17:00 (8 am - 5 pm) or 23:00 - 08.00 GMT
London trade times (GMT +1) = 08:00 - 17:00 or 07:00 – 16:00 GMT
New York trade times (GMT -4) = 08:00 - 17:00 (8 am - 5pm), or 12:00 GMT - 21:00 GMT
The most active trading hours are when the London and US sessions overlap (13:00 GMT - 17:00 GMT.)
If you live in New York, which is -5 GMT during Standard time, subtract 5 from those hours and you will get 8:00 - 12:00 EST New York time for the most active trading.
New Release info
Key economic data release schedule
The list below displays the times (GMT) when the most important economic data for each of the following countries are published.
United States = 13:30 GMT - 16:00 GMT, or 08:30 - 11:00 EST New York (USD currency pairs)
London/Germany = 06:45 GMT - 11:00 GMT (EUR currency pairs)
Japan = 23:50 GMT - 04:30 GMT (JPY currency pairs)
Great Britain = 09:00 GMT - 10:00 GMT (GBP currency pairs)
Switzerland = 06:45 GMT - 10:30 GMT (CHF currency pairs)
Canada = 12:00 GMT - 14:00 GMT (CAD currency pairs)
Australia = 22:30 GMT - 01:00 GMT (AUD currency pairs)
New Zealand = 21:45 GMT - 02:15 GMT (NZD currency pairs)
High Impact News Releases
Major news releases in Japan are at 23:50 GMT.
Major news releases in Europe (such as Germany) are at 07:45 GMT.
UK News Releases are at 09:30 GMT.
Major US news releases are often at 13:30 GMT.
But there can also other major news releases outside these hours as shown above.
High impact news releases are news releases that impact the Forex market the most and which cause the greatest volatility levels. In this class are the employment data, interest rate decisions, GDP figures, retail sales, manufacturing data and the inflation reports.
There are nine basic sets of data to look for and each will be released at a regularly scheduled time:
1. Interest Rate Decisions by Central Banks/Financial Policy Makers
2. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rates
3. Retail Sales
4. Inflation (Consumer Price and Producer Price)
5. Unemployment
6. Trade Balance (Surplus or Deficit)
7. Business Confidence/Outlook Surveys
8. Consumer Confidence Surveys
9. Manufacturing Confidence/Outlook Surveys
Click Here for Economic Calener.
News Releases and Expert Advisors
Unless you have an EA that is specifically created for trading during news releases and sudden spikes, it might be a good idea to avoid trading during news release hours.
You can use the optinal new release filter in Ed's Price Action EA to tell the EA to not trade near news times.
More often than not it may be more profitable just to grab a few pips a day rather than letting an EA open trades all day and night.
Usually when you look at a currency pair H1 chart for example, and see a huge incline or decline in price in only half a dozen bars/candles or so, it may be because there was a news release.
If you are sitting in front of your computer and trading manually it may be safer to trade during those times than it is for an EA to trade during those times if you are not there to monitor it.
My Price Action EA and my Candle Pattern EA both have an optional input built into them so that if it is on true with the time settings on true you can tell the EA to close all open trades (winners and losers) prior to a major news release time such as before 13:00 GMT.
If there are trades that are live and in loss territory before a news release there is a chance the news release may cause the price to go your direction and close all the losing EA trades in profit. But if it goes the other way you can have a huge drawdown or loss, especially if you are using a martingale mode in my EA's.
Ultimately it is up to you when you want the EA to trade.
Some of Ed's EA's have a built in take profit feature so you can adjust the EA to close all open trades when a certain daily profit is reached, and not trade again until the next day.
From what I can discern it seems the fewest news releases are between 18:30 - GMT - 21:30 GMT.This may be a safer time to trade with less risk. And avoid trading Friday's.
Click Here fore more details about trading times.
Currency Pairs
There are presently 8 major currencies traded on the Forex market:
1. U.S. Dollar (USD)
2. Euro (EUR)
3. British Pound (GBP)
4. Japanese Yen (JPY)
5. Canadian Dollar (CAD)
6. Australian Dollar (AUD)
7. Swiss Franc (CHF)
8. New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
The four major currency pairs which usually have the lowest spread are:
EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDCHF, USDJPY
EURUSD is the most popular currency pair and may be a good pair to use any of Ed's EA's on.
But sometimes even less volatile currency pairs may be more advantageous to use the EA's on.
GBPAUD, EURNZD, GBPJPY, EURAUD, GBPCHF, EURJPY, USDJPY, AUDUSD, NZDUSD are popular currency pairs to trade during the Australia/Tokyo overlap.
AUDJPY, GBPUSD and USDCHF are safer, less volatile pairs to trade during the Asian session. But this can all change as the market changes and times change etc.
GBPCHF, GBPJPY, EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDCHF have big moves during the 4 hour London/US Overlap.
EURGBP, NZDUSD, AUDUSD, EURCHF, AUDJPY, USDJPY, USDCAD have smaller moves during the US/London overlap.
But when there is an important news release affecting the GBP pairs there can be huge moves with EURGBP and other GBP pairs.
Overall most pip movement = GBPAUD, EURNZD, GBPJPY.
Overall least pip movement = EURGBP, NZDUSD, EURCHF.
In terms of pips and not percentage
(From most pips in a day to the least amount of pips in a day):
USDZAR (but the spread is huuuuge)
USDSEK
USDNOK
EURSEK
GBPNZD
GBPAUD
EURNZD
GBPJPY
GBPUSD
GBPCHF
EURAUD
EURCAD
EURJPY
EURUSD
CADJPY
NZDJPY
AUDJPY
AUDUSD
USDCHF
AUDNZD
USDJPY
AUDCAD
CHFJPY
USDCAD
GBPCAD
EURCHF
EURGBP
NZDUSD
Spread from lowest to highest
EURUSD
GBPUSD
USDJPY
EURJPY
EURGBP
USDCHF
GBPJPY
AUDUSD
USDCAD
CHFJPY
EURCAD
EURCHF
GBPCHF
NZDJPY
EURAUD
CADJPY
AUDJPY
AUDNZD
GBPCAD
GBPAUD
AUDCAD
NZDUSD
GBPNZD
EURNZD
USDNOK
EURSEK
USDZAR
USDSEK
But this can all change as future market conditions change.
Choosing a VPS to run your EA's on
Sometimes it is an advantage to use an EA on a VPS that is in the same GMT zone as your broker's MT4 price feed.
NextPointHost is offers excellent VPS services. They are located in Bulgaria (GMT +2).
So, for example, if you broker's MT4 price feed is also GMT +2 you might want to consider usingNextPointHost or another vps hosting service that is in the GMT +2 zone.
FinFX and HotForex are both in the GMT +2 zone, and at the time of writing both accept US citizens.
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