Because so many different cross currencies are traded in the FX market, trading hours are usually measured GMT which is an international standard for time measurement. Trading starts 20:15 GMT on Sunday and finished 22:00 GMT Friday. The market opens up in Sydney and closes in New York.
The table below summarises the times that each market is open:
As you can see by the table above there are certain times when markets overlap. This is generally the best time to trade as there is much better liquidity and often a higher volatility that allows you to maximise returns when you identify profitable trading opportunities.
So when choosing which currency pairs to trade it should be taken into consideration when the most liquid times and opening hours of the respective markets are. For example, trading the EUR/USD is naturally most active when the US and the European sessions are overlapping.
Overlapping sessions are: Sydney and Tokyo, Tokyo and London and then London and New York. The graphic below illustrates this more clearly.
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