While the Olymp Trade platform makes it possible to trade 24/7 with crypto, OTC and Quickler, the Forex market is open 5 days a week. Therefore, traders need to time their activities well to make the best of trading on their chosen instruments. This article offers various hints on how to do that.
Contents
- Time Zones and Trading Sessions
- Economic News and Olymp Trade’s Insights
- Elections, Gold, and Currencies
- Earnings Season
- Trade Timing Tips
- It’s Best to Combine Approaches
Interact with the underlined words and green dots to get additional details and explanations.
Time Zones and Trading Sessions
The Olymp Trade platform informs all traders about changes in the trading schedule beforehand.
The global Forex market is shared between the four trading sessions. These are Asian, European, American, and Pacific. Here is the schedule.
| Trading session | Financial Centers | Time (UTC) |
|---|---|---|
| Asian | Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul | 00:00 — 08:00 |
| European | London, Frankfurt, Zurich | 06:00 — 16:00 |
| American | New York, Chicago | 15:00 — 23:00 |
| Pacific | Wellington, Sydney | 22:00 — 07:00 |
For a given currency, trading is usually most intense in the busiest hours of its “native” trading session. Therefore, this is when that corresponding currency tends to experience most volatility and potentially bring the biggest profit opportunities.
- For the American dollar the American trading session is the most active period.
- For the euro, the European session is the time of the peak activity.
- For the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the Asian session is the busiest period.
- For the New Zealand and Australian dollars, the Pacific session is the busiest.
Keep in mind that each country and region has its own official holidays such as New Year. The holiday schedule affects the working hours and availability of markets on a given day. You can check the holiday schedule for 2022 that we previously published in our blog.
Economic News and Olymp Trade’s Insights
Economic events frequently impact the prices of trading instruments. Therefore, it is reasonable to trade on economic news. Where to find them and what to trade? The Olymp Trade platform’s Insights is a good tool.
It is easily accessed through the sidebar on the platform through the Help Center. It contains the expected news releases that can potentially make the prices of various trading instruments move.
In Insights, every news box shows when the news release is expected. Therefore, traders can time their trades in conjunction with the corresponding news release.
Elections, Gold, and Currencies
National presidential and governmental elections are a very impactful process. Gold and currency prices tend to actively react to them. Therefore, it may be a period full of trading opportunities.
Below, you have the gold price chart with the highlighted downtrend in the period of the 2016 US Presidential Elections.
The same period corresponds to the uptrend on the USD/JPY chart.
These kinds of events may drive the prices of the impacted trading instruments and bring ample trading opportunities for traders.
Earnings Season
Corporations report their quarterly performance once every three months. Their stock prices can make big moves before and upon the release depending on whether the presented outcomes beat and undershoot the expectations. For those who are keen on trading stocks, earnings season is potentially a very profitable period. Every such season, Olymp Trade provides the earnings release schedule and trading suggestions on the platform and through its community channels.
In the Help Center, you can get more advice on how to trade during Earnings Season.
Trade Timing Tips
Prepare a Trading Plan in Advance
Decide what you want to trade and when it is best to do so based on the information provided above. Form, follow, test, and improve your trading strategy in a consistent manner.
Wait a Bit After the News Release
Many traders tend to rush into opening positions at the moment or shortly after news is released. It often leads to unforeseen losses. To avoid that, wait for about 10 minutes after the news release, let the market stabilize, and then open a trade.
It’s Best to Combine Approaches
Remember that the safest way to proceed is to try and combine various approaches and strategies. Even if you have already found one that works, it’s always good to have a couple of alternative trading tactics up your sleeve, and Olymp Trade is happy to supply you with these.
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