what are the trading sessions?

The correct sequence of major trading sessions:

Wellington, New Zealand Session

Sydney, Australian Session

Tokyo, Japanese Session

Singapore, Asia Pacific Session

Frankfurt, European Session

London, UK Session (most of the trading happens here)

New York, North American Session

There is also the Frankfurt session which starts by 7 am UTC+1. This is when the German markets open and the effect is always felt when you are trading pairs that contain the Euro (such as EUR/USD). The most important hour of the Frankfurt session is the first opening hour (7-8 am UTC+1).

In the forex market, the major sessions are Sydney, Tokyo, London, and New York. These sessions sometimes overlap as well as generating more market volatility. Besides these sessions, there are also regional sessions such as the Asian session, the European session which comprises of Frankfurt and Paris, the Middle Eastern session, and the Canadian session. These are also important, althoug they're less talked about

Singapore Session

The Singapore session starts by 2 am UTC+1 time and ends by 8 am UTC+1 time.

@Cahaya, how significant is the Singapore session? I never heard of it!

The Singapore fx trading session is significant enough to be highlighted on major platforms like cTrader because Singapore contributed over $1.4 trillion USD worth of OTC fx transactions in 2025 according to the BIS triennial report. Singapore contributed 11.8% of all OTC fx transactions last year which is significant.

This is an interesting thread, the only trading sessions I thought mattered were the London & New York ones

Frankfurt goes mostly unsung but its important, it opens one hour before the London session

European session = London, Frankfurt

Asian session = Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore

Sydney is usually the session that opens the dancing floor so its the first trading session of them all.

During the Asian session, Singapore is the last session to open so the sequence is Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore

Wellington Session - New Zealand

This session starts from 8 pm UTC+1 and it overlaps with the ending hour of the New York

8 am UTC+1 today and Singapore, Frankfurt & London sessions are active at the same time. By the way, Tokyo just closed at 8 am sharp

Wellington

Tokyo

Sydney

Singapore

Frankfurt

London

New York

@teefx01 the Frankfurt session starts and ends one hour before the London session. The Frankfurt and London sessions don't start and end at the same time.

we have main sessions and we also got regional sessions that overlaps but they also affect the market by adding liquidity, making prices volatile when sessions overlap, affecting prices due to regional news announcements, causing liquidity shortages when sessions change and influencing currency and asset correlation. Awareness of these impacts enables traders to predict market trends during various trading sessions.

Sydney: 10:00 PM – 7:00 AM

Asian (Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore): 12:00 AM – 9:00 AM

Frankfurt/European: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

London: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

North American (New York, Chicago, Toronto): 2:00 PM – 11:00 PM