why is the asian session bad for trading forex?

Because the risk does not equal the reward. You spend long hours trading the Asian session only to make a small profit because price is changing so slowly (they call this low volatility).

If it took you 2 hours to make $100 profit during the Asian session, it could take another person 30 minutes to make the same $100 profit during the London session, so tell me which session would you rather trade? I guess the London session 😉

Theres low liquidity during the Asian session after the Asian session ends, it serves as a guide for determining what the next session (London session) is going to do in terms of price action. To find out more please read this :

https://www.mytradingland.com/thread/how-to-trade-eurusd-with-the-breakout-strategy-7391d8

The Asian is partially bad for trading because of low liquidity and volatility leading to narrow, range bound price consolidation rather than clear trends.

The Asian session is mainly dominated by comoanies doing business in/with China, Japan, Australia, etc. During the Asian session what goes on is mainly a bidding process so price action can be unpredictable. However, after the Asian session ends, you can mark it out on your chat and use its highest and lowest points as a reference to trade the London session.

The Asian session is a combination of the New Zealand, Sydney, Tokyo & Singapore sessions but when the Asian session is open, London & New York sessions are closed. According to the Bank for International Settlement (BIS), London alone accounts for 45% of OTC liquidity in the forex market so if you trade when the London session is closed you will definitely face slower price discovery, higher spread, and even slippage

The Asian session (roughly 00:00–09:00 UTC) is considered “bad” for most forex traders because:

- Very low volatility → price often chops in tiny ranges (20–40 pips on majors).

- Lower liquidity → wider spreads and more fakeouts.

- Few strong trends → mostly sideways action.

That's why I focus my energy on London or NY sessions for cleaner moves.

Though the the way I trade us not session based but I love this two sessions best.

How do you trade yours?

The Asian session has fewer market participants because the high volume sessions (London & New York) are usually closed when the most part of the Asian session is open. Whenever there are fewer market participants in any market there is always a sort of monopoly and this causes prices to be higher (in this case spreads can be higher)

lower liquidity in the Asian session often leads to wider spreads and "monopoly like" price action from fewer players.

Skip scalping EUR/USD or GBP/USD then. Instead, focus on JPY pairs (they move better in Asia) or wait for the London open.